BX 8331 
.S83 

















































. ° JP *; ri ^ k * 1 °«* 

„*•'-•• y % ^ V^rr^’.y °o, 

* , V ' <b, -1?^ ^ 4> . t.- ** 

■*- -> .^\Va. V ^ ,'/ 




^ s % - 



. .... . 

A v.* • 

,♦ 4? ^f> % 

.•■ .A <. • 

»••*. 'b ,«> . V.., <4 

•-^-' ° vT ♦VflZfcC* * 

4 3l° 

• tv**' .o° <k * 


* A v « 

r V<$? • 



/? 

4 «? ^ • 

* * r^ - & * 

° 4 A A° K, '••* 

,0 s O®^*# ^O 4^’ 

0 • _fi£5$VW* O .ffr 

' 







V 






• • 

° * /J^\v * '"Ocx 

* . ^ ^ • (<r * < 1 v ■ j. 

aV^ -'■•••* «&* % 

A? ,'■'•+ <S> cA . o " o *1 

4 * % 0 ° • 

, ^ % 
k * V*0 X 




o <5 <?* 






°* *•■.’•• ap' O o‘**rr,-’ * 

<?. .<r , • • •', *> -i> , * • °. *c> o' 

* WA* \$> <A 

; va^ '£MM!h,i °^v 

* ^ 'IBr* a v -^ 


t w • 




» • * * , 0 * ^ '^^ 5 ' A ' 

, 0 ' 0 0 * ° * C 3 * v « 

V • c* 5 ?\Vv,^ < ’- O 


* ° 

* <y ^ 

^TTT' /% <v 

? • *• 1 * r '<$* 

° <5 °rf. 

• <i> o <3 

-> V** ( , .„ < V^*" , *»f° *° ; ° 

V ** A* •’/ 

. v*v :. w/>t 

> *U XT' * -G / 5 ' J ^ • ww^jjp~jr i aV «$*. o/y BSur * v/\ 

• ■* <C V %£, , v -o* — -° # v t^T aV '$*• 

* <G* V vf^^A <V '?.?• ^ 

P <*° "^b • .*•'** ^ „ 0 ^“ • •■ •• ** 

*-— V» • rC t v\tv^'‘ O A*? *_>/r??-> •* T_ ^ 





O • A 





• 


/°- vSify: ? -v •©SgSv . 

> c b ^\ 0 ’ v-^-v c, 

.'jaVa*. V a* .‘ 

; ^ s s 

• .^" ; V “ 

*^S S <\ <^ 'o . * - C> 

’o j-^ .•^L', ** c° °> a . 

* :£mb;- • 

° ~v<* 




^o V 



\0 »^* 

_ ^ ^ ” * <n^yjy<*> ♦ r» 

'° % **^* / ‘^-* / 


















METHODIST EVANGELISM 


THE SAM JONES LECTURES 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE FACULTY AND 
STUDENTS OF EMORY UNIVERSITY , 
ATLANTA , GA. y 1923 


\ 


BY 

GEORGE R. STUART, M.A., D.D., LL.D. 


Nashville, Tenn.; Dallas, Tex. 
Richmond, Va.; San Francisco, Cal. 
Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South 
Lamar & Barton, Agents 
1923 




"BX £331 
,$33 


Copyright, 1923 
BY 

Lamar & Barton 





m 15 imj 


C1A759844 


FOREWORD 


I am to deliver a series of lectures on '‘Methodist 
Evangelism” as the opening series of a course of 
lectures established in this institution as a worthy 
memorial to the late Rev. Sam P. Jones. For many 
years I was his colaborer and constant companion. 
For this reason, I take it, I have been selected to give 
the first course of the series of lectures. 

I am in fullest sympathy with you in your scho¬ 
lastic work, having pursued the courses which you 
are pursuing and having had conferred upon me the 
degrees of A.B. and M.A. and D.D. and LL.D. 
After all this doctoring, I am glad to announce that 
I am still alive. In this course of lectures, I shall 
make no attempt at scholastic display. For nearly 
half a century I have pursued the arduous task of 
evangelist and pastor, having devoted my years 
about equally between the two. I shall, therefore, 
rely upon the years of actual experience, personal 
observation, and tested-out methods in delivering 
to you some practical thoughts on evangelism. 









CONTENTS 


I Page 

The Evangelist and His Message. 7 

II 

Equipment on the Human Side. 27 

III 

Evangelistic Methods. 49 

IV 

The Methodist Church and Evangelism. 70 

V 

The Church Revival. 89 

VI 

Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist. 108 


(S) 












I 

THE EVANGELIST AND HIS MESSAGE 

My theme this evening is “The Evangelist and 
His Message,” the preacher and his preaching. 
Through the ages preachers have been so different 
in title, characteristics, and message that it would 
be difficult accurately to define a preacher of the 
Word. It is difficult to estimate how much one 
personality is influenced by a predecessor in the 
same kind of work. We are naturally imitators. In 
every calling of life men copy each other. Preachers 
have followed each other in method and style until 
preaching has become quite complex. One class of 
'preachers will follow some preceding type; another 
class may follow a distinctly different type, until the 
whole process of preaching becomes typical. Occa¬ 
sionally a unique and original type arises, to be in 
turn copied and imitated. 

The preacher and the preaching of history are so 
varied that a definite model may not be accurately 
set. The earliest types are found in the Jewish priest 
and prophet, who constituted the two leading per¬ 
sonalities of the Old Testament. They were the 
preachers of their age. The priest was the official 
of an^ecclesiastical institution bound by the fetters 
of tradition and custom; his messages were those of 
corporate authority handed down through the life, 
teaching, and experience of the Church. He dealt, 
for the most part, with the individual rather than 

the crowd. He was the spiritual director and the 

( 7 ) 


8 


Methodist Evangelism 


mediator of sacrifice; he followed strictly and care¬ 
fully enforced formalities and rituals. Ecclesiastical 
organizations administered by priestly formalities 
become cold, even tyrannical, yet the spirit cannot 
carry the vital forces of religion without an organiza¬ 
tion. The priestly function preserves this institu¬ 
tion. The Church has needed, and has always had, a 
limited number of Churchmen with gifts and work 
corresponding to the Jewish priest. When the 
number enlarges, the Church becomes formal and 
cold. 

The priestly function is transferred to our modern 
Christian Church in those who cling tenaciously to 
conviction, ceremony, ritual, rubric, euchology, and 
litany. This type of preacher naturally gravitates 
to the position of pastor-teacher. If he does not lose 
the spirit in the form, he builds up, administers, and 
preserves the organizations and institutions by 
which religious society grows strong and wholesome. 
Wesley was the priest and Whitefield the prophet of 
Methodism. 

When the Hebrew prophet stirred and fired the 
people with his scathing or pleading, his warning or 
exhortation; when cries of confession and repentance 
filled the air; when the people were reformed and 
purified—then the priest holding and administering 
the institution gathered and conserved the values, 
building them into the institution of the spirit for 
religious permanency. The Old Testament priest 
passed with the ceremonial law, and the Messianic 
types were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who became the 
High Priest of the new dispensation and his disciples 
became kings and priests unto him. “Wherefore in 


The Evangelist and His Message 


9 


all things it behooved him to be made like unto his 
brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful 
high priest in things pertaining to God, to make 
reconciliation for the sins of the people.” (Heb. ii. 
17.) “And hath made us kings and priests unto 
God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion 
forever and ever.” (Rev. i. 6.) 

In the Old Testament the word “prophet” carried 
a variable meaning. The first appearance of the 
word carried a meaning somewhat like our loosely 
used word “professor,” signifying a leader or director 
in any teaching or educational field. Among the 
early Hebrews a prophet was the head of any de¬ 
partment of instruction or an authorized leader or 
spokesman. When he took the r61e of the “head 
teacher,” the pupils were called the “sons of the 
prophet.” 

When God called Moses to carry a message to 
Pharaoh, king of Egypt, Moses complained that he 
was a man of uncircumcised lips, whereupon the 
Lord gave him a spokesman: “And the Lord said 
unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: 
and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.” 

In 1 Chronicles xxv. the leaders of sacred music 
are called prophets: “Moreover David and the 
captains of the host separated to the service of the 
sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who 
should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and 
with cymbals.” Miriam was called the “prophet¬ 
ess,” doubtless because she led the women “with 
timbrels and with dances.” (Ex. xv. 20, 21.) 

The word reached its highest meaning in the 
character and function of the teacher of the word 


10 


Methodist Evangelism 


and will of the Most High God. This sacred char¬ 
acter, called of God and recognized by the people as 
prophet, became the outstanding figure in the 
Hebrew Church. The spirit came upon him not only 
in power of receiving and delivering divine messages 
to the people, but in visions of things to come. He 
became the authoritative teacher of the Word and 
the herald of the divine message; he was at once the 
forthteller and the foreteller, the holy mouthpiece 
of Jehovah. The prophetic messages in the Old 
Testament are historic, didactic, and prognostic. 
The prophet was the historian, preacher, teacher, 
and foreteller. Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and other 
divinely appointed leaders and spokesmen for Jeho¬ 
vah at times exercised the prophetic function. In 
the long list of Hebrew prophets the character of 
men recognized as prophets presented a very varied 
and almost undefinable class. Sometimes in the 
divine movements with highly temperamental char¬ 
acters the spiritual rhapsody approached a hysterical 
seizure. Among many of the weaker, their ministry 
was mystic and magical rather than ethical and 
spiritual. The men who set the substantial prophetic 
type were true evangels of God, whose character 
and messages are represented in the Old Testament 
prophetic literature. 

Except Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who were of priestly 
lineage, these prophets were unordained laymen, 
some of them the most singular, transcendent, and 
remarkable men in the annals of sacred history. 
They held special communion with God and an¬ 
nounced from hilltop, mountain, temple, and plat¬ 
form, not only the truth of God as touching the life 


The Evangelist and His Message 11 

and conduct of the people, but drew back, as if with 
divine touch, the curtains of time and revealed the 
blessings and curses of Jehovah, which betimes 
should fall upon the people. They lifted out of the 
future the cross of Christ and raised the flaming 
torch of Pentecost. 

They were at times odd, spectacular, and sensa¬ 
tional; they adopted most unconventional and unique 
methods of illustrating their messages. To express 
the subjection that God would bring on the nation, 
Jeremiah put bonds and yokes upon his neck and 
walked among the people. Isaiah stripped off his 
coarse prophetic robes and walked barefoot as the 
sign of distress that would befall the Egyptians. 
Jeremiah stood before the people and smashed the 
potter’s vessel. These rugged and unconventional 
men aroused great emotions and wrought the most 
remarkable reformations among the people. They 
were the evangelists of the Hebrew Church. From 
Isaiah to Malachi the Scriptures are packed with 
the burning messages of the prophets. The priest 
and' prophet of the Old Testament are no longer 
among us, save in their types and messages. They 
are types of the modern pastor and evangelist. 

With the new dispensation, God called men and 
endowed them with specific function for their age and 
their work. Certain prophetic and priestly functions 
are permanent and characterize preaching in every 
age and constitute important elements in the ministry 
of the New Testament period. The New Testament 
ministry is set forth in the fourth chapter of Ephe¬ 
sians: “And he gave some, apostles; and some, 
prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors 


12 


Methodist Evangelism 


and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the 
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of 
Christ; till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ.” 

A careful study of the priest and prophet, of the 
New Testament preacher and his preaching, of the 
modern preacher and his sermon will enable us more 
or less accurately to classify the gospel minister of 
to-day. We have only brief paragraphs here and 
there of New Testament preaching. Peter, James, 
Barnabas, Paul, and others did much preaching, but 
reports of their discourses are meager. A study of 
the early apostolic work and ministry will reveal 
three characteristic styles of gospel messages. 

First, there was that class of sermons or that kind 
of preaching designed to publish the gospel or the 
“good news” to those who had never heard it; to take 
from the lips of Jesus or his disciples, or by special 
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the gospel message 
and, giving to it a clear and authentic statement, 
publish it to the people. This is classed as apostolic 
preaching. St. Paul in Asia Minor and Bishop 
Lambuth in Africa were apostles. 

Following this was the style of preaching designed 
to more fully explain, more earnestly impress, and 
more urgently insist upon an acceptance of this 
truth. This was the prophetic or evangelistic type of 
preaching after which the evangelism of the present 
day is to be typed; it was the appeal to conscience. 
Peter and Philip, Luther and Wesley, and others 
who stirred the people were examples of this type. 


The Evangelist and His Message 13 

* The third was a type of preaching designed chiefly 
to confirm, develop, and enlarge Christian character; 
to feed and foster the flock. This type of preaching 
is the pastor-teacher type, according to which the 
modern pastor-teacher has modeled his preaching. 
St. James of the Jerusalem Church and all other men 
who have had the care of a single Church or specific 
congregations represent this type. 

In our age the apostolic element is rarely found. 
We have to do, first, with the prophet in the sense 
of the forthteller rather than the foreteller, the 
evangelist as the voice to conscience; and second, 
the pastor-teacher as the priest, the shepherd, the 
leader, and feeder of the flock, the curator of the 
Church and its branches of service. 

At this time we have under special consideration 
the evangelist. The evangelist by nature, call, gift, 
and ministry is a peculiar type of New Testament 
authoritative minister. He is called of God in 
divine recognition of peculiar gifts and sent forth 
under the direction of the Holy Spirit to do a peculiar 
work. 

The divine call is the paramount question before 
every man considering any kind or class of preach¬ 
ing. Natural fitness for the discharge of certain 
apparent functions of the ministry, such as aptitude 
or fondness for forensic or declamatory speech, the 
desire to promote morals and advance high ideals, 
the taste for addressing and instructing the multi¬ 
tudes, and all similar questions are to be carefully 
analyzed. A man considering the profession of 
medicine, law, pedagogy, or commerce may base his 
decision upon aptness, taste, and fancied adapta- 


14 


Methodist Evangelism 


bility, but the divine call to the ministry is entirely 
apart from this class of decision. The Word of God 
is distinct and clear: “ Ye have not chosen me, but I 
have chosen you.” “ He is a chosen vessel unto me, 
to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and 
the children of Israel.” “Separate me Barnabas and 
Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.” 
“But when it pleased God, who separated me from 
my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to 
reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among 
the heathen; immediately I conferred not with 
flesh and blood.” The men who are called to preach 
are those whom God selects, upon whom the divine 
Spirit comes in clear and unmistakable impression. 
The matter of deciding the call to any class of min¬ 
istry is in that sacred and holy realm of the soul’s 
conscious communion with its God. In this holy 
communion there is no audible voice or distinct verbal 
enunciation, but there is a definite and distinct im¬ 
pression upon the soul, following which there is a.n 
unmistakable yearning toward the work indicated 
by the Holy Spirit. This yearning manifests itself 
in the deep desire to do the thing to which the Holy 
Spirit has called with a joy and happiness therein 
and a restlessness and dissatisfaction in other fields 
of labor. 

“To one man it comes suddenly, like the flash of 
the lightning, the peal of a trumpet. To others it 
comes slowly, like the dawn creeping over the hills, 
the whisper of a distant voice. To some it comes as 
a great joy, filling the soul with hope and ecstasy. 
To others it comes through travail, and is almost a 
sorrow and a pain. One is at once filled with the 


The Evangelist and His Message 


15 


sense of confidence and strength; another trembles 
and shrinks, and is conscious only of appalling 
weakness.” 

This divine call must be carefully differentiated 
from the advice and suggestions of teachers, neigh¬ 
bors, and friends. These suggestions, however, 
while they are not authoritative, are confirmatory. 
God has given us in the Holy Scripture the definite 
statement of his truth, but he has fortified and con¬ 
firmed the Scriptures by all his creation. Every¬ 
thing in nature testifies that “day unto day uttereth 
speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.” 
When a man is called of the Holy Spirit to the min¬ 
istry of the Word, somehow the deep impression 
goes out to those around him, and they feel that there 
is a divine authority in his speech, and thus their 
advice and encouragement become confirmatory 
evidence. A very high authority goes further in 
this statement: “I do not think any theological 
college or seminary ought to receive for training a 
man whose personal sense of a call is not reenforced 
by the recognition and indorsement of the Church.” 
Dr. Washington Gladden, in his work entitled 
“The Christian Pastor,” says: “So if a man thinks 
himself called to preach, and can find no one who 
wishes to hear him preach, he ought to decide that 
the inward call was misunderstood. Thus it is 
plain that, whatever his inward impulses may be, 
a man is compelled to test his inspirations by the 
judgment of his fellow men. And the Christian 
Church has wisely provided that this double test 
shall be applied. No minister ought to undertake 
the work unless he believes that he has a divine 


16 


Methodist Evangelism 


vocation; but he ought to submit this conviction of 
his to the approval of his brethren.” 

The Spirit who calls to the ministry as definitely 
indicates the kind of ministry. The joy and success 
in pursuit of the kind of ministry to which one feels 
called is the highest testimony of the call. The God 
who made us knows us, and his divine call is always 
in harmony with his creation. The evangelistic call 
is given to those who are naturally possessed of the 
powers necessary for the work. If you would test 
your call to evangelism, appeal to the things that 
press to your ministry and the slain of the Lord who 
crowd the altars. 

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan says: “A great deal that 
has been said about a gift bestowed making a man 
a preacher who had no natural ability is sheer 
nonsense. God’s natural and spiritual worlds are 
not so out of joint. Nevertheless, the final truth is 
that no natural ability qualifies a man for the work 
of the ministry of the Word apart from the bestow- 
ment of a gift of grace which is a spiritual qualifica¬ 
tion. There can be no training of the minister until 
that gift is received.” 

Whom God calls, he has endowed for the exercise 
of the special ministry to which he is called, whether 
it be apostle, prophet, evangelist, or pastor-teacher. 

The four New Testament types of ministry men¬ 
tioned may be blended in greater or less degree in 
one personality. Every preacher may at times be 
apostolic, in that he catches by the light of the Holy 
Spirit falling in special glory upon the page a new 
statement or interpretation of the truth, and under 
this divine afflatus he may lift a torch of special 


17 


The Evangelist and Ilis Message 

glory and brilliancy to the eager eyes of his audience, 
and classify his message as apostolic. 

The teaching gift may be a part of every minister’s 
endowment for his work. Every kind of preaching 
is instructive, and the preacher in a general sense is 
always a teacher. 

The type of ministry which is more likely to be 
spectacular and peculiar is the type that stirs con¬ 
science and arouses men to action; this is the evan¬ 
gelistic type. The call of the evangelist is no more 
specific than his message. The evangelistic message 
is aimed at the whole man; the evangelist should 
convince the mind, persuade the will, and move the 
feelings so that the hearer may be brought to a point 
of immediate decision concerning his future life and 
character. The evangelistic appeal is not to society 
at large, but to the individual. The evangelist is 
not the agent of reformation, but of regeneration; 
he is not the instrument or agent to society at large 
to change opinions, but a flaming messenger carry¬ 
ing the gospel designed to change the nature of the 
individual. The specific work of the evangelist is 
not to destroy false “isms” among the people, but 
to expel the devil, their author, from the heart of 
the individual. “When he, the Spirit of truth, is 
come, he will guide you into all truth.” 

A successful evangelist may also be an efficient 
teacher; he may, during a series of revival meetings, 
give out much valuable information, yet any spe¬ 
cializing in pedagogic fields involving subjects and 
doctrines other than the cardinal doctrines connected 
with the subject of salvation will retard rather than 
advance the revival. During the revival period, the 
2 


18 


Methodist Evangelism 


mind of the evangelist should be centered on the 
arduous task of stirring the Church to a more thor¬ 
ough abandonment of all sin, a deeper consecration, 
a stronger reach of faith, and an irresistible cry for 
power. The burning rays of truth should be first 
focused in the field of the lukewarm Church member. 
He should be made to tremble under the conscious¬ 
ness of wasted opportunity, neglected graces, and a 
profitless and unfruitful life. In the revival period 
ministers and laymen need to search the heart, 
confess, pray, and forsake sin of thought, tempers, 
and habit that they may receive the Holy Ghost, 
not as a religious dogma, but as an individual and 
empowering personality. This circumscribed mes¬ 
sage to the Church, this focusing of the burning 
rays of truth on conscience, record, sin, repentance, 
the blood, prayer, waiting, and power will bring a 
revival atmosphere known and recognized by all 
evangelistic workers. The sinners should be made 
to quake in the face of violated law, rejected blood, 
and ignored mercy. The bleeding sacrifice, the 
yearning love, the outstretched arms under the light 
and power of the Holy Spirit should be persistently 
presented. 

Roland Hill, the unique and successful evangelist, 
bounded his field of ministry by three “R’s ”—ruin 
by the fall, redemption through Christ, regeneration 
through the Holy Ghost. 

Many themes may at proper times be legitimate 
for the pulpit of the pastor-teacher. There may be 
times when a careful and full discussion of the various 
isms ’ which affect the thought of vagrant and 
ruminating minds may be entirely appropriate and 


19 


The Evangelist and IHs Message 

exceedingly helpful as a kind of winnowing process 
in clearing the mind for the reception of the gospel 
truth. 

There may be times when it is necessary to define 
clearly and instruct the congregation in the work of 
social service, the cup-of-cold-water side of Christ’s 
gospel. 

Political and economic questions may arise in a 
community in such form as to affect the moral 
duties and activities of the Christian, and it may 
become necessary for the pastor-teacher to give a 
clear and definite statement of the duties of a Chris¬ 
tian citizen. 

Science, literature, nature, and the fine arts, 
without doubt, have valuable offices in the refine¬ 
ment and culture of the human mind. There may 
be many themes during the deliberative periods of 
pedagogic and didactic preaching which may enlarge 
the soul, enrich the Christian life, and vastly extend 
Christian service. In the intense period of the re¬ 
vival season such themes would be, for the most part, 
entirely out of place. 

The evangelistic message must of necessity and 
efficiency be narrow , not in doctrine, but in scope, 
not in limitation of the broad purview of all the 
fundamental doctrines of the Church, but in limita¬ 
tion of the field to be intensely covered during the 
evangelistic period. This is necessary for the purpose 
of intensity and the accomplishment of the primary 
aim and object of the evangelist—namely, the present 
and immediate salvation of the soul. 

In the evangelism of the ages the characteristic 
note is the same. The revival under Ezra after the 



20 


Methodist Evangelism 


return from Assyrian captivity has, perhaps, the 
greatest similarity to our modern revivals, though 
similar gatherings and like messages are found in the 
times of all the old prophets. Wherever the prophets 
of Israel faced these periods of declension, the people 
were called to the law, to prayer, and to repentance. 
“Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered 
themselves together, . . . and Ezra the priest stood 
up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed. . . . 
Now, therefore make confession unto the Lord God 
of your fathers. And being guilty, they offered a 
ram of the flock for their trespass.” 

John the Baptist closed the evangelism of the Old 
Testament, and his constant cry was: “Repent.” 
The Master opened his ministry with “repent” 
Peter opened the New Testament evangelism at 
Pentecost with “Repent and be baptized, every one 
of you.” Philip, Barnabas, and Paul took up his 
theme. The cry of the Spirit to the Churches of 
Asia was: “Repent.” 

When Luther arose out of the darkness of the 
centuries of superstition, sin, and spiritual decline, he 
lifted his voice against the sin and corruption of the 
Church. 

Wycliffe, Huss, and Jerome of Prague, the Johns 
that followed—John Calvin, John Knox, John 
Taussen, and John Laski—all carried the revival 
fires of Protestant evangelical faith by hammering 
at sin and lifting the cross. 

In the Reformation period there was by far more 
of the educational and more of the controversy oi 
theological opinion than in any other evangelistic 
period. The Reformation was characterized by the 


21 


The Evangelist and His Message 

burning desire to find the true way of life, and much 
time was devoted to theological statement and 
argument, yet the life of the movement was in the 
deep conviction for sin and joy of regeneration. The 
chief concern was the soul’s personal relation to God, 
and the high testimony of the truth of the doctrines 
preached was the conversion of sinners. 

When Whitefield and the Wesleys lifted the 
flaming torch of the Wesleyan Revival, repentance 
and justification by faith were constant themes. 

There has somehow crept into the minds of the 
men of to-day who are devoting themselves entirely 
to evangelism the belief that in order to stir up the 
community and awaken widespread interest at once 
it is necessary to go through the town with a hatchet, 
like certain modern reformers, breaking into every¬ 
body’s private business or into all the public and 
social affairs of the city. To be sure, this does stir a 
community and bring people together like a burning 
building, a collision of automobiles, a personal 
difficulty between citizens, or any other occasion 
threatening a catastrophe. The proper turn given 
later to this “hullabaloo” may result in much good. 
Through the gospel of love preached later in the 
meeting, and the gift of the Spirit, many oi the 
wounds may be healed and much of the fierce re¬ 
sentment allayed; but there will always linger in 
the community scars of needless wounds, and many 
who are not won over will remain embittered toward 
all succeeding evangelists. Much unnecessary and 
unwarranted opposition to evangelistic work is thus 
left slumbering in the community. 

It would be cowardly and unmanly to avoid 


22 


Methodist Evangelism 


candid and needed reproof for fear of resentment, 
for sin must be reproved and crime rebuked; yet 
this sharp reproof would much better come at the 
close than at the beginning of the revival. This 
process of dealing with personal and public sins may 
be termed the “surgical process” of the gospel. 
Going through the town stabbing people to the right 
and left for the purpose of attracting attention and 
creating a furor of excitement is quite different from 
going thoughtfully with warranted surgical instru¬ 
ments and skillfully cutting to save. The pain of 
surgery led to the discovery of anaesthesia. Under 
this benign influence the most difficult surgery may 
be performed and the most virulent diseases removed 
without pain to, or opposition from, the patient. 

There is a spiritual power under which the sinner 
may be cut with the keenest knife of reproof and 
separated from the most heinous sins without arous¬ 
ing in him the least antagonism to the preacher. 
Under this gracious influence on the day of Pente¬ 
cost, “When they heard this, they were pricked in 
their heart, and said, . . . What shall we do? and, 
repenting of their sins, they gladly received the 
Word, were baptized, and were added unto them.” 
When this power is “noised abroad,” the “multi¬ 
tude” will come together. The difference in the 
two processes is that the first is in great danger of 
being a man-stirred city, while the second, without 
doubt, would be a God-stirred city; the former would 
be a sensation, the latter a conviction. Many men 
of strong personality and superior human gifts may 
stir a community and attract large crowds by dis¬ 
cussing in a spectacular way all the sins of the 


23 


The Evangelist and His Message 

community. There is a morbid curiosity which 
brings people together to witness any sort of physical 
or moral catastrophe. 

On the day of Pentecost, in the upper room, the 
“cloven tongues” went before the fearful arraign¬ 
ment, “Him have ye taken, and by wicked hands 
have slain.” The first messages of the God-called 
and God-appointed evangelist should be in the con¬ 
stricted line of the upper room message: Repentance, 
consecration, faith, prayer, waiting, power. The di¬ 
rection of our Saviour was short and circumscribed : 
“Tarry ye in Jerusalem till ye be endued with power 
from on high.” The business of the upper room was 
limited and specific: “Pray and wait.” The evan¬ 
gelistic message leading to pentecostal experience is 
confined to a narrow field. After the enduement and 
power, the “tongue of fire” messages are messages 
of compaction, of subjects and doctrines or narrow 
comprehension covering a limited field, the ham¬ 
mering at conscience, the revelation of sin and its 
consequences, the lifting of the cross, the story of 
love. 

As I have suggested, the pastor-teacher may deal 
with the whole gospel message in statement, pro¬ 
mulgation, and exposition. The evangelistic mes¬ 
sage is not specifically didactic. The evangelist 
accepts the apostolic statement, follows the prophet¬ 
ic herald, and seeks for an immediate decision on 
things known and admitted. The message is 
exhortatory rather than didactic or expository. The 
doctrines connected with the whole process of 
repentance, faith, and salvation should be made 
clear, but social business and civic ethics would bet- 


24 


Methodist Evangelism 


ter be left to the pastor-teacher in the process of 
edification and building up of the saints. May I 
emphasize again—the field, the message, and the 
work of the reformer and gospel evangelist are dis¬ 
tinctly different. The appeal of the former is to 
society and the masses ; the evangelist is sent for 
the individual lost sheep. The evangelist must 
hammer at the individual conscience and work for 
individual decisions. 

The evangelistic message has an experimental 
testimony bound in the personality of the preacher. 
The writer may lose himself in his essay; the lecturer 
may hide behind his subject; but the preacher is as 
inseparable from his sermon as the wick from the 
light of the candle. Withdraw either and the other 
is dead. A sermon is gospel truth attested, reen¬ 
forced, and vitalized by human experience. Since the 
evangelist is urging his hearers to seek a specific 
experience, it is exceedingly important that there be 
no doubt of the fact that the preacher has this expe¬ 
rience. The preacher not only states the truth, but 
adds the testimony of what he knows and feels. 
Peter “standing up with the eleven’' lifted the 
prophecies and shot them through with the experi¬ 
ence of himself and his fellow apostles in the words; 
“This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all 
witnesses.” If the preacher has seen and known 
Jesus, if the witness of the Spirit, a consciousness of 
the indwelling personality of the Holy Ghost, has 
become a positive experience , then the sermon and 
the preacher blend like the prismatic colors into the 
white light of the truth. His experiential positive¬ 
ness in the utterance of the truth will surcharge it 


Thz Evangelist and His Message 25 

with irresistible force. A sentence like, “This is 
true; I know it, for I have experienced it,” is like the 
explosive behind the projectile, it drives home. 
St. Paul’s statement, “At midday, O king, I saw in 
the way a light from heaven,” was irresistible. 

This experiential testimony should appear in the 
vigor, positiveness, and flaming affirmations of the 
Word rather than the exploitation of personal 
history. If we really know him, he cannot be hid. 
If we are theorizing about an experience of which we 
ourselves are not conscious, the emptiness of our wit¬ 
nessing will appear. If the preacher knows experi- 
entially and has had abundant fruit, there will be a 
strong temptation—to which many modern evan¬ 
gelists have abundantly yielded—to exploit one’s self. 

The exploitation on the part of some should not 
drive the other evangelists from a humble and defi¬ 
nite public personal testimony. This experiential 
positiveness lays hold of the depths within the 
preacher and enables him to speak to the depths in 
the hearer. Whatever this experience costs in self- 
denial, self-sacrifice, consecration, prayer, and wait¬ 
ing, the wise servant of God will not hesitate to pay 
the price. 

The Methodist Church from the beginning has 
been a testifying Church. Some of the most mar¬ 
velous conversions have occurred in what has been 
termed the “Methodist experience meeting.” There 
is a convincing power in personal testimony. In 
nothing is a minister more powerful than in his ex¬ 
periential testimony, provided he has an experience. 

For sixteen years I heard Sam Jones, the noted 
evangelist, before audiences of five, six, seven, eight, 


26 


Methodist Evangelism 


and even up to ten thousand, recite his personal 
experience with marvelous results. At the close of 
a great sermon, when his audience had been con¬ 
vinced of the truth of the gospel he had preached and 
were in closest sympathy with him, he would close 
his sermon with a recital of his personal experience 
which seemed the final and effective stroke of the 
hammer that broke the hearts and brought hundreds 
weeping to the altar. 

In his sermon on “ Escape for Thy Life,’’ after 
naming the various sins to which men are addicted, 
after denouncing in the most scathing and terrific 
terms the sinful habits of men, with soul aflame, in 
words pathetic, with tears streaming down his face, 
he would give the testimony of his own sinful life and 
his repentance and conversion and urge sinful men 
to turn from sin as he had done. 

Every evangelist from St. Paul to the present has 
had an experiential testimony voiced in the positive, 
vital, triumphal, and fruitful preaching of the Word 
in verbal narration of the glorious work of grace in 
his heart. Experiential certainty and triumphal 
testimony are the strength and glory of evangelism. 


I 


II 

EQUIPMENT ON THE HUMAN SIDE 

In the various fields of gospel ministry the ques¬ 
tion of adaptation is paramount. The calamities of 
life are nowhere more visible than in the misfits. 
Everywhere we turn we find people working at tasks 
for which they are not fitted and fretting their lives 
away with failures because the task is totally out of 
harmony with the nature and capabilities of the 
workman. 

The servants of God are all members of the same 
household of faith; all are members of the same body 
and equally honorable. There are no orders which 
establish superior and inferior relations, yet there 
are gifts and qualifications that adapt men to spe¬ 
cific work. The hand cannot do the work of the eye, 
nor can the eye do the work of the hand. God set 
each member of the body in its place and fitted it for 
its specific function. Jesus Christ, “who thought it 
not robbery to be equal with God,” smashed all 
orders and forms of hierarchy by dropping on his 
knees with a towel to wash his disciples’ feet, teach¬ 
ing us the equality of brotherhood and the glory of 
service. Equality in relation does not indicate simi¬ 
larity in service or identity of gifts. There are di¬ 
versities of gifts: “To one is given the word of wis¬ 
dom; to another the gifts of healing, to another the 
working of miracles.” 

Evangelism is a specific class of work in the king¬ 
dom and requires peculiar natural and spiritual gifts 

( 27 ) 


28 


Methodist Evangelism 


for its best accomplishment. God, the author of both 
natural and spiritual gifts, recognizes both in the call 
and commission to service. The study of the men 
whom God has called to evangelistic work in the 
history of the Church gives us certain natural gifts 
recognized in the divine call. In the same field of 
study we may observe human defects. To cultivate 
one and avoid the other should be the chief concern 
of those who feel called to this important field of 
gospel ministry. That this concern may be stimu¬ 
lated and efficiency increased, we venture to suggest 
some helps and hindrances. 

Helps 

Vitality .—A distinctive characteristic of the evan¬ 
gelistic gift is physical, mental, and nervous vitality 
—a live man, a man teeming with vigorous, vital 
impulse, with fire in the eye, flash in the face, and 
tingling life throughout the body. There is some¬ 
thing supremely attractive in life. One looks with 
admiration on the great oak with every branch and 
every leaf vibrant with life. A sickly plant, whether 
large or small, somehow repels us. A man steps 
upon the platform as an evangelist; if he is vital in 
the highest sense of the word, the fact will appear in 
every movement. 

Imagination .—An evangelist is imaginative. There 
is a universal attractiveness in pictures. A child at 
ten and the sage at eighty are attracted by a picture. 
While the latter may get more out of it than the 
former, each fills his cup, large or small. It is a 
pleasure alike to both to look at the picture. Our 
Saviour very clearly taught us that nothing is more 


Equipment on the Human Side 


29 


attractive to the masses of the people than the 
picture: '‘Without a parable spake he not unto 
them.” In this natural characteristic the evangelist 
finds his greatest strength and his supreme danger. 
An imaginative mind is poetic and extravagant and 
finds its chief joy in clothing a somber fact in bril¬ 
liant robes. Sometimes the fact is so thoroughly 
and extravagantly clothed that the identity is en¬ 
tirely lost; and when once the identity of the original 
fact is lost, the imaginative orator is liable to make 
almost any fascinating and extravagant picture. A 
mother came to me once greatly troubled about the 
tendency of her small son to tell extravagant and 
unreasonable stories. She asked my advice. I told 
her that the indication was that she had an embryon¬ 
ic poet, orator, preacher, or liar—he was capable of 
making either, and unless very careful attention was 
given to his training, he would most likely make a 
liar. 

Illustration .—There is no field connected with an 
evangelist’s work so important, so helpful, and yet 
so dangerous as that of illustration. In the relation 
of personal experience, an imaginative mind may 
enlarge on the facts little by little until the story 
ultimately belies the fact. A highly imaginative 
mind, in giving forth a certain established fact con¬ 
nected with human experience, may so color it that 
it will pass entirely out of its class and get away from 
the truth. Many evangelists, yielding to this 
temptation, have greatly decreased their influence 
because their highly colored pictures ultimately turn 
out to be enormous lies. They continue to stretch 
our credulity by such statements as these: ” I prayed 


30 


Methodist Evangelism 


continuously day and night”; “I could not eat or 
sleep for days”; “The whole town was stirred”; “ I 
have spent hundreds of dollars on these worthless 
tramps”; “Thousands of men have told me the same 
old story.” To these highly imaginative minds one 
hundred easily becomes two hundred; two hundred, 
five hundred; five hundred, one thousand, and so on. 
The evangelist does not willfully and intentionally 
falsify; he yields to a vivid imagination, fluent 
speech, and an intense desire to establish certain 
facts and produce certain results, and as a conse¬ 
quence inadvertently becomes an exaggerator and 
later a common liar. Of course some have shed 
hogsheads (?) of tears over this, but tears do not 
always save. Illustrations properly and carefully 
used, having in them a clear and unmistakable ring 
of truth and sincerity, add tremendously to a preach¬ 
er’s power and efficiency. 

Illustrations in themselves have degrees of effec¬ 
tiveness. There are various degrees, but for matter 
of illustration I mention only a few. The least 
valuable illustration is the one in which a preacher 
uses an incident reported after this fashion: “I some¬ 
where read this story,” or “some one has given the 
following incident.” This is entirely too indefinite. 
The inquiry arises in the mind at once concerning 
the indefiniteness and uncertainty of the story, or 
the thought may arise that the person quoted may 
be very unimportant and insignificant. Every state¬ 
ment is worth itself plus the man back of it. If the 
man back of a statement amounts to nothing, the 
statement, however strong, loses value. A stronger 
illustration is put in this language: “Seated in a 


31 


Equipment on the Human Side 

dining car on the Pan American running between 
Cincinnati and New Orleans over the L. & N. 
Railroad, Col. John S. Doe, the author of the most 
popular book, as you know, of this age, on the sub¬ 
ject of ‘Human Inventions/ said to me: ‘The great¬ 
est invention put forth by the human mind in this 
century is the radio.’” This illustration has in it 
all the strength of the man who uttered it and has 
in it a definite and precise time and place. It con¬ 
nects up with one’s own experience, and in all these 
things it is strengthened. The more prominent the 
character, the more important the place, and the 
more significant the event, personage, or experience 
with which any illustration is connected, the stronger 
and more effective the illustration becomes, pro¬ 
vided that it equally makes clear the fact under 
discussion. 

An illustration is always more effective when a 
double point is made with it; that is to say, when the 
illustration itself gives to the audience a new, 
unexpected, interesting, and valuable point of his¬ 
tory, philosophy, or experience and at the same time 
illustrates the subject under discussion. The peo¬ 
ple are delighted to have the new information and 
are pleased when this new information couples with 
it the power to illustrate the point under discussion 
—for example, illustrating the fact that a man may 
go beyond the point where grace may reach him, 
descend to the depths where conscience is so seared, 
the mind so blunted, and the morals so degraded 
that no appeal will reach him, one may use a bit of 
natural philosophy like this: If a cork is pushed 
down in the ocean ten feet and released, it will 


32 


Methodist Evangelism 


quickly rise to the top; if pressed down twenty feet 
and released, it will quickly rise to the top; if pressed 
down fifty feet and released, it will quickly rise to 
the top; if pressed down, down, down one hundred 
feet and released, it will rise to the top; but it may 
be pressed to a depth from which it will never rise. 

Humanness .—Another natural characteristic of 
an evangelist is what may be denominated “human¬ 
ness.” There is no touch like the human touch. 
The man who is, as the old lawyers termed it, “free 
with the jury”; as the platforms put it, “captures 
his crowd”; as the stage puts it, “goes off with the 
performance”; as the fact would have it, “gets the 
human contact”—he is what we call the man with a 
human touch. He gets this touch in many ways; 
one is by connecting his own human experience with 
his audience. Human experiences are quite similar, 
every one having somehow or somewhere or in 
some way touched the joys or sorrows, the successes 
or failures, the triumphs or humiliations, the balms 
or wounds, the friends or foes of life. It is easy for a 
speaker to get the human touch in whatever field 
of human experience he may wander. He can hardly 
relate a hardship or a sorrow or a supreme difficulty, 
-a challenge to an enemy, a rise or fall, that he will 
not have over his audience everywhere a quick and 
human response. “A fellow feeling makes us won¬ 
drous kind.” Similar experiences establish a kinship. 
The human touch is the vital touch. 

Big Heartedness .—The next natural trait is what 
we may term “big heartedness,” a broad, deep, 
general sympathy: one who in a generous, broad way 
loves his fellow man, loves animals, birds, and 


Equipment on the Human^Side 33 

things. There is a general human contempt for 
selfishness, for narrowness, for isolation, and for 
coldness. There is on the other hand a general and 
generous response to unselfishness, broadness, liberal¬ 
ity, generosity, and all such kindred qualities. 

Practicality .—Men are attractive who know folk 
and things; who are good judges of human nature; 
who are able quickly to discern the right thing to be 
done in emergencies, to handle situations, to treat 
with wisdom and propriety the various classes of 
humanity—the everyday, practical, common-sense 
sort of fellow, possessing what is styled “ horse sense 
which indicates stable thinking.” This is a charac¬ 
teristic that is most appealing to the masses. 

Speed .—Nothing is more attractive to the average 
person than quick movement, however and whenever 
performed. When it was announced that a train 
would be run from New York to Chicago in eighteen 
hours, called the “Eighteen-Hour Limited,” there 
was tremendous excitement along the whole line of 
road. Thousands of people gathered in the small 
towns to see it pass through. It is reported that it 
went through some towns at the rate of eighty miles 
an hour. There was nothing unusual about that 
train except its speed. It had the same engine and 
coaches that were formerly used, and the same 
track, but the speed increase was the attractive 
feature. Some of the greatest evangelists have been 
men with rapid speech, men who think quickly and 
speak rapidly. 

Enthusiasm .—An enthusiast is always a dangerous 
character. When I am in a forty-horsepower auto¬ 
mobile going down the road with all the power on, I 
3 


34 


Methodist Evangelism 


want to be sure of the man at the wheel. Enthusi¬ 
asm is always liable to extreme movements. Energy 
and zeal always appeal to live people, that class of 
people who feel like poking a dull fire to make it 
burn brightly, turn on the gasoline to quicken the 
speed, and stir up every fellow whose movements are 
slow, sluggish, heavy, cloggy, and lifeless. 

Scholarship .—The scholarship which includes that 
training of the mind secured through books is of the 
highest importance. The scholastic training of the 
mind establishes a distinct personality; it also se¬ 
cures clear thinking and correct speech. It also gives 
mental strength and poise. These things not only 
enable the speaker to present a gospel theme with 
greater power, but they save him from needless and 
just criticisms and also save him from offending the 
taste of the best class of people. The unusual success 
of many evangelists totally illiterate, or with only 
partial education, has somehow placed a kind of 
premium on illiteracy. It cannot be doubted that 
many illiterate men have been greatly blessed and 
that their evangelistic work has accomplished large 
things for the kingdom, yet it would be absurd to 
claim that the author of the human mind with all of 
its its faculties and capabilities could in any way put 
a premium on ignorance or illiteracy. Simplicity of 
speech, plainness of language, and thorough adapta¬ 
tion of the gospel truth to the minds of the common 
people are, of course, necessary; and these may be 
acquired in the very best manner when the mind is 
thoroughly trained. Paul, Luther, Wesley, and other 
great leaders did masterful things because of both 
scholastic and spiritual preparation. The Church 


Equipment on the Human Side 


35 


needs trained leaders, men who, by example as well 
as precept, may draw the masses of people toward 
higher and better things, including the culture of the 
mind as well as the development of spiritual graces. 

The evangelist should have a careful and thorough 
theological training. A tremendous amount of doc¬ 
trinal “bosh” is being scattered over the country 
because men have not been carefully trained in the 
great fundamental truths which they attempt to 
discuss from time to time. The greatest calamity 
coming from such a blundering discussion of theories 
for the fundamental doctrines of the Church is the 
confusion produced in the minds of the common 
people. One evangelist comes into the community 
emphasizing with all of his powers certain religious 
theories. The next one following him contradicts 
these and puts forth others no more correct, and so 
the mind of the common people is constantly dis¬ 
turbed by various unestablished theories advanced 
for doctrines. If all evangelists were carefully 
trained in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, 
so that there might be clear and harmonious teaching 
along with their evangelistic preaching, we should be 
saved of much needless confusion. 

By the soundest and sanest opinion George White- 
field is one of the outstanding evangelists of history. 
During his revival in New York, a periodical, founded 
by the suggestion of Jonathan Edwards to promote 
the great revival by publishing the results of the 
work as it progressed, gave a brief pen picture of the 
man and his work. I quote it as a concrete illustra¬ 
tion of what I have said: 


36 


Methodist Evangelism 


I never saw in my life such attentive audiences as Mr. 
Whitefield’s in New York. All he said was demonstration, 
life, and power. The people’s eyes and ears hung upon his 
lips. They greedily devoured every word. He preached dur¬ 
ing four days, twice every day. He is a man of middle stature, 
of a slender body, of a fair complexion, and of a comely ap¬ 
pearance. He is of a sprightly, cheerful temper, and acts and 
moves with great agility and life. The endowments of his 
mind are uncommon; his wit is quick and piercing; his imagi¬ 
nation lively and florid; and, as far as I can discern, both are 
under the direction of solid judgment. He has a most ready 
memory, and I think speaks entirely without notes. He has 
a clear and musical voice, and a wonderful command of it. 
He uses much gesture, but with great propriety; every 
accent of his voice, every motion of his body speak, and both 
are natural and unaffected. If his delivery be the product 
of art, it is certainly the perfection of it, for it is en¬ 
tirely concealed. He has a great mastery of words, but 
studies much plainness of speech. He spends not his zeal in 
trifles. He breathes a most catholic spirit, and professes that 
his whole design is to bring men to Christ; and that, if he can 
obtain this end, his converts may go to what Church and 
worship God in what form they like best. 

What a picture of a young preacher just twenty-. y 
four years of age! Nobody thought of such a man 
as a "boy preacher,” for his power was not in any 
juvenile peculiarity of person or eccentricity of 
manner, but in “demonstration of the Spirit.” 

Hindrances. 

Turning to the hindrances of the evangelist, it is 
alarming to state that no other field of gospel minis¬ 
try presents so many dangers. The greatest enemies 
are one’s own faults and weaknesses. It may be well 
for us to consider carefully a few temptations to the 
evangelist. 


Equipment on the Human Side 


37 


Pride or Egotism .—The evangelistic work is neces¬ 
sarily more or less spectacular. If anything worth 
while is accomplished in a town or city through what 
we call “professional evangelism,’’ three things are 
necessary namely, preparation for large crowds, 
organization to secure the presence of crowds, and 
the creation of an organized machine to rally around 
the evangelist and support him in every possible way. 
This necessarily makes the evangelist the central 
figure, the one upon whom all eyes are turned, the 
one around whom the great crowd mobilizes. He 
becomes “the observed of all observers,” the promi¬ 
nent figure in the great movement, and the center of 
attraction. All these things stimulate pride and 
vanity. They tend to make one autocratic, domi¬ 
neering, and self-conceited. Not infrequently the 
evangelist becomes a coxcomb in the pulpit, strutting 
and vaunting himself and parading to the disgust of 
the thoughtful. His self-conceit parades itself in 
extravagant boastings of what he has done and 
where he has been, the prominent homes he has 
entered and the prominent people he has met and 
been associated with, delivering on all occasions 
various amounts of self-praise and self-aggrandize¬ 
ment. It is really very pathetic when an evangelist 
becomes such a detective as to put Sherlock Holmes 
out of literature; such a pugilist as to obscure Sulli¬ 
van, Corbett, and the rest; such a prominent charac¬ 
ter that presidents, senators, and other dignitaries 
literally intrude on him; such an evangelist and 
preacher that all other preachers become jokes and 
fakes and fizzles in his comparison. Often a man who 
starts into the evangelistic field with a large degree of 


38 


Methodist Evangelism 


modesty and humility yields to this temptation, 
brought about by the prominence thrust upon him 
by the crowds, organization, and aggrandizement, 
and becomes a veritable concentration of bombastic 
egotism. 

When Christ sent out the seventy, he gave explicit 
directions, a sharp suggestion for evangelists of all 
ages: “Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: 

. . . eat such things as are set before you.” No 

display of money or clothes and no demand for 
sensuous delights or display of luxuriant living, 
the modest use of just such things as the plain people 
use where the evangelist works was the appointment 
of the Saviour. When an evangelist or any servant 
of Christ makes a display of clothes, diets, or any 
manner of high and extravagent living, he makes a 
sharp and vulgar discord in the harmonies of Chris¬ 
tian conduct and example. The self-sacrificing and 
Christly, unselfish spirit is superior to vulgar appe¬ 
tites and foppish and gaudy display. The least sug¬ 
gestion of such taste detracts from the work and is 
in discord with every Christian grace. The demands 
of vocational evangelists for luxuriant apartments at 
fashionable hotels and the foolish and extravagant 
display of clothes or other follies are entirely out of 
harmony with the spirit of the work of the evangelist. 

Bossism .—Every one is himself plus the forces that 
work with him. A man who has only a few people to 
rally around him and support his efforts cannot 
exert as much power as the man with no more person¬ 
al strength who has a very large crowd of efficient and 
effective people associated with him in the accom¬ 
plishment of any task. When an evangelist goes to a 


Equipment on the Human Side 


39 


community where all the preachers, Churches, and 
prominent Christian workers gather around him and 
through these the luncheon clubs, Chamber of Com¬ 
merce, and business organizations are also rallied to 
his support, power is created. When put back of 
any man it adds just that much to any power that he 
may have. The making of any man the leader and 
central figure of such a forceful machine creates in 
him the impression that he is the personal embodi¬ 
ment of it. He overestimates himself, then becomes 
domineering, boastful, and intolerant. This spirit, 
when long indulged, renders one so self-dependent 
and dictatorial that he will not have the helpful 
counsel and advice of others. He yields to tempta¬ 
tion and becomes the lord of God’s heritage, the 
intolerant boss. In this mood he gives offense to 
many of the most faithful workers, contradicts the 
gospel which he preaches, and discounts himself and 
his work. 

u Humanized Power .”—God works through human 
instrumentalities. The divine power is often limited 
by the restrictions and limitations of the human 
instrument and is sometimes increased by the conse¬ 
cration and efficiency of the human instrument. The 
human side may be so thoroughly and completely 
worked that the divine side will be neglected. By 
organization and effort men and women may be in¬ 
fluenced to take steps, make public professions, and 
even join the Church of God without the deeper and 
necessary work of the Holy Spirit. Evangelistic 
organizations in a community are in great danger of 
overexerting the human side. Rivalry, contests, 
races, and all kinds of human efforts are often intro- 


40 


Methodist Evangelism 


duced, and people are literally pulled into the Church 
with no knowledge of God and no deep experience of 
regeneration. 

‘‘ Evangelistic Reputation.” — The work of the 
professional evangelist depends upon the calls he re¬ 
ceives, and the calls depend largely upon the success 
he has achieved in the communities where he has 
worked. This makes it very necessary for an evangel¬ 
ist to succeed at one place in order that he may se¬ 
cure an invitation to go to another. This condition 
offers the subtle temptation to seek ostensible re¬ 
sults rather than definite and specific work. The 
evangelist is tempted to resort to all kinds of exhibi¬ 
tions to save himself from what might be termed a 
failure—exaggerated publications, unfaithful state¬ 
ments as to the number converted, all classes of 
people induced to make some public demonstration 
showing ostensible results, when in fact a public 
parade is the only actual accomplishment. All of 
these false demonstrations, publications, and exhibi¬ 
tions discredit both the evangelist and his work; and 
not only is the guilty one affected, but the entire 
work is discounted. The vocational evangelist in no 
way more effectually nullifies his work than by the 
use of schemes, devices, false methods, and other 
processes to create a false impression concerning his 
work. He does not, in the long run, accomplish his 
purpose. It is impossible to deceive the people. 
Men and women who have worked in revival meet¬ 
ings are quick to discern any species of hypocrisy or 
false show. The reputation of an evangelist can be 
safely risked on the work actually accomplished. An 
exaggeration at one point will raise the suspicion of 



Equipment on the Human Side 41 

insincerity at all points, and the whole fabric will be 
weakened. , 

“The Money Question ."—The big danger is the 
money question. No more subtle danger has con¬ 
fronted the professional evangelist. The modern 
evangelistic method subjects the evangelist to every 
possible temptation, and to many of them he 
vigorously yields. He has no way of supporting him¬ 
self and family except by the freewill offering of the 
people. These offerings must depend in large meas¬ 
ure upon the success of the meeting. Every evangel¬ 
ist has unequal successes in his work—here a success¬ 
ful meeting, there a more successful one, and here 
again a less successful one. It is quite evident that 
the successful meetings must in a way carry the un¬ 
successful. It, therefore, becomes apparently neces¬ 
sary for an evangelist to put the real business touch 
to the financial side of his meeting, and this is fre¬ 
quently done to the disgust of the community and a 
pathetic and distressing discount of the evangelist 
and his work. The business men of the world are 
quick to see any financial scheme. It is impossible 
by sharp speech, adroit organization, or smart 
methods to conceal the fact from the alert business 
man. The fact that here and there an evangelist has 
grown rich, has extravagantly spent money to the 
ruin of his family, the disgust of pious, thoughtful 
people, and the humiliation of all who are really and 
deeply interested in the Master’s kingdom, calls for 
a thoughtful and careful consideration of this sub¬ 
ject. 

Money is a worthy motive power. Every man and 
woman in the industrial world looks eagerly to the 


42 


Methodist Evangelism 


salary, and the hope of increasing it has inspirec 
many honest and efficient workmen to redouble theij 
diligence and increase their efficiency in order tha' 
the money may be increased. This is normal anc 
moral. Money is a natural incentive and a worth} 
prize, but it is ; dangerous when overstretched, espe¬ 
cially in religious work. “ The laborer is worthy ol 
his hire,” but “the love of money is the root of a\ 
evil.” Over and over plans have been devised tc 
save the evangelist from the destruction of greed 
If a specific salary is offered—that is, if the success ol 
the meeting in no wise adds to the financial better¬ 
ment of the evangelist—a powerful incentive has 
been removed; if the evangelist’s salary depends 
upon the success of his meeting, a powerful incentive 
has been presented. 

The freewill offering, if legitimately used and 
properly guarded, is, I think, the best method for 
taking care of the evangelist. If an evangelist enters 
a community and succeeds in uniting the Christian 
people in the accomplishment of large results, and if 
a large number of worldly and wicked men and 
women are genuinely converted and brought into the 
Church, there will be a general desire to show grati¬ 
tude by a gift to the one who has rendered the service. 
Most of this money, as a rule, comes from people who 
are not accustomed to contributing to ordinary 
Church expenses. At the close of a great revival a 
freewill offering, properly guarded and properly con¬ 
ducted, forms a delightful and gratifying method of 
community expression. When a great work has been 
accomplished for any community, it is legitimate and 
worthy that some acknowledgment be made. 


Equipment on the Human Side 


43 


Every one connected with the great work enjoys be¬ 
coming a party to this expression. Thus a great 
religious work can be easily and gladly supported to 
the profit of every participant and to the hurt of no 
individual and no other Church work; indeed, if 
properly conducted, it should be a stimulus to other 
Church work. This is only true of a freewill offering. 

When the work is degraded to a collection, and 
various schemes and organizations and sharp meth¬ 
ods and business tricks are used to extract money 
from the people, the work becomes reprehensible and 
the results distressing. When an evangelist be¬ 
comes more of a money getter than a soul winner, 
when he looks after his own pocket with greater 
diligence than he does the needs of the community, 
when he leaves the impression on the business men 
connected with his movement that his chief desire is 
to get a collection, he brings the whole work into 
disrepute and shame. If the work is genuine and 
deep, if real things have been accomplished, if a 
community has been genuinely helped, the evangel¬ 
ist under the most simple methods will be sure of a 
liberal offering. I have never known a great revival 
in a community—a revival where the work was deep 
and genuine—when there was not a desire upon the 
part of the community to liberally reward the 
preacher who brought about the results; and they 
should have the opportunity in a good, businesslike 
method. No warning is more important to the 
evangelist than the warning to beware of collections 
promoted by schemes. The stories elaborated con¬ 
cerning gifts at other places, concerning urgent 
financial calls, concerning urgent personal matters, or 



44 Methodist Evangelism 

any other such references are quickly scented by the 
average business man. This is especially true in this 
age of financial drives conducted by laymen. All 
kinds of matters are freely discussed and thoroughly 
understood and are as apparent as the tricks of the 
ordinary book agent. 

There are some features of dull preaching which 
should be avoided. I mention a few that have helped 
to depopulate the Churches and will most certainly 
block the evangelist. 

Nothing is so disgusting, nerve racking, and re¬ 
pelling as formality, monotony, sameness. It is said 
that so delicious a food as a quail on toast served in 
the same way at the same hour every morning to the 
same person will become disgusting, repulsive. 
God never made two things alike. Nothing is more 
delightful to the human mind than variety, nothing 
more disgusting than monotony. The average preach¬ 
er is formal to the limit—dresses formally, walks 
into the pulpit formally, speaks in a formal tone, 
His conduct from start to finish is formal; he begins 
the service and ends it the same way every Sunday, 
He even has a prescribed order of service and a 
printed bulletin that is unchanged the year round, 
How could he be more formal or more monotonous tc 
those whom God has made to love variety? 

Another disgusting and repelling thing to the 
observant is solemnity —a solemn face, a solemr 
dress, a solemn tone, black robes, and sepulchra 1 
voice. One could scarcely push youthful spirits 
into such a presence, much less secure their presence 
by voluntary act. The ecclesiastical school has 
somehow got the idea that the God who made the 


Equipment on the Human Side 45 

blossoming flowers (none of them black), the varie¬ 
gated singing birds (only a few scavengers black), 
the smiling landscape, the laughing brook, and all 
joyous nature, is to be pleased with black robes, 
solemn sounds, and guttural tones. Who authorita¬ 
tively said that a smile in the house of God is a sacri¬ 
lege? Who authoritatively prescribed a black robe 
or a solemn face for the ministry? No wonder the 
joyous, hopeful youth flee from these things. 

Platitudes are most tiresome and disgusting. No 
set of men in public life are more platitudinous than 
preachers. They have more set phrases, pet expres¬ 
sions, and oft-repeated sentences than any other 
class of public speakers. Their prayers and sermons 
are packed with the expressions used by hundreds of 
preachers in the same form. It would require pages 
to quote these ministerial platitudes, such as, ‘'I 
wish to say in the first place,” “I desire to call your 
attention in the first place,” “Let me say firstly,” 
etc. Why doesn’t some preacher originate the plan 
of stating, “In the third place,” and give us a de¬ 
lightful feeling that we had escaped the first and 
second places? 

Every audience has heard over and over for years 
the platitudinous conclusion, “I desire to say in con¬ 
clusion,” “One more thought in conclusion,” “Let me 
say in conclusion,” “This thought and I am done,” 
“Finally, my brethren,” or “One other thought be¬ 
fore I close.” If only some preacher would stop with¬ 
out notice and leave his audience to guess that the 
last thing he said was his “finally.” 

Few things are more tiresome or disgusting than 
unintelligibleness. Every one enjoys what he under- 


46 


Methodist Evangelism 


stands; he grows tiresome over unintelligible things, 
If you have an acquaintance whom you do not like 
and whose visits you wish to cut short, the next time 
he calls read him a few chapters from some book in a 
language of which he knows nothing, and then an¬ 
nounce to him that the next time he returns you will 
read a few more chapters from the same book. 

There seems to be a kind of a pride among preach¬ 
ers to find words and expressions which smack of 
learning and which the average man cannot under¬ 
stand. His discourse is full of scientific and theologi¬ 
cal terms: '‘Apocalypticvision,” the “Paraclete,” the 
“Synoptic Gospels,” and hundreds of such terms 
quite intelligible and even commonplace to the 
theological student, but entirely without meaning to 
the average hearer. 

If it is desired to tire and disgust a hearer, talk to 
him about something in which he has no interest, 
something that has no relation either to him or to his 
work. The average preacher has attended college, 
has taken the theological course somewhere, fol¬ 
lowed certain theological and historical lines of 
study until he has cultivated a taste for these dry 
and, to other folks, disinteresting things. He 
imagines that others share his fondness for these 
things. The average man does not care a groat for 
them, and yet he is stuffed Sunday after Sunday with 
things for which he cares nothing. No wonder he 
stays away. 

If we take Jesus as an exemplar, we shall find that 
he spoke to the people in the simplest possible man¬ 
ner. There is no word or information concerning the 
spectacular robes, ceremony, or ritualism; he was a 


Equipment on the Human Side 


47 


plainly dressed man, in simple style, in plainest 
language, talking to the people. Much of his preach¬ 
ing was in the open air. He stuck to the people from 
first to last; the language, the figures of speech, the 
stories and parables were all taken from the everyday 
life of the people. Here we find the real reason that 
the “common people heard him gladly.” In his 
audience might be found, at various times, the 
shepherd, the vinedresser, the fisherman, the farm¬ 
er, and the housewife. How intelligible and inter¬ 
esting must have been his homey pictures taken from 
the everyday life of each class: “I am the Good 
Shepherd:” “I am the Vine, ye are the branches;” 
“The kingdom is like a sower who went forth;” “A 
little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” 

Whenever and wherever Jesus spoke, his message 
was in the language of the people who heard him, and 
his manner was that of a teacher stating in simplest 
forms the truths of his own gospel. No robe, no 
ritual, no ceremony, no vain repetitions, no tiresome 
preliminaries or postliminaries, no attitudes or poses, 
no copying of any man or any form or custom of his 
age. A study of the manner and methods of St. 
Peter and St. Paul and the other apostles will reveal 
these same simple characteristics. Before Felix—a 
simple experience; in the center of learning and 
religion—a lesson taken from the statuary about 
him. 

Everywhere and under all circumstances, the 
apostles gathered from the occasion and the surround¬ 
ings material for their sermons. Their deliverances 
were free from the domination of homiletic structure, 
tiresome formalities, and irksome platitudes. They 


48 


Methodist Evangelism 


were natural, free, and easy in their presentation c 
the gospel message. 

The author of formal homilies, whoever he was, ha 
fastened on the ministry a tiresome formality fror 
which few young preachers dare to depart for fea 
their deliverance will not be styled a great sermon 

Let it be carefully noted that this discussion ha 
been confined to the human side of preaching. Abov< 
all this, and in compensation for much of it, is th< 
divine element. I have described a machine useles 
without the power, a chandelier dark without th< 
dynamo, a human instrument powerless and non 
luminous without God. 


Ill 

EVANGELISTIC METHODS 


Aggressive evangelism has been conducted in the 
United States under seven organized movements, all 
of which have been more or less characteristic of 
Methodism in aim, spirit, and methods. These 
seven movements are as follows: The camp meeting, 
the city mission, the Salvation Army, the taber¬ 
nacle campaign, the Church revival, Sunday school 
evangelism, and personal evangelism. 

The Camp Meeting .—In former years, when 
Churches were scarce and preachers few and large dis¬ 
tricts lay here and there without regular preaching 
services, there was a custom during the pleasant 
summer months to erect some kind of tabernacle or 
auditorium and provide temporary booths for lodging 
and camping, secure the services of a few evangelis¬ 
tic pastors, and call the people together to some 
central spot in the country for what was styled the 
annual camp meeting. The Methodists are pioneers 
in outdoor preaching, both in Britain and America. 
However, the camp meeting which became such a 
factor in evangelistic work in the United States from 
1800 on for a century, originated in Logan County, 
Ky., under the ministry of James McGready, 
a Presbyterian minister. Here for the first time, so 
far as we have any record, people moved on the 
ground and set up housekeeping in covered wagons, 
booths, and temporary structures in order to attend 

the revival meetings daily. The custom, thus 
4 (49) 


50 


Methodist Evangelism 


started, of coming together and camping in larg< 
crowds for religious meetings grew in popularity 
through the Southern States especially. 

Some of the most interesting and marvelous things 
in American Church life occurred at these camj 
meetings. Rev. B. W. Stone, a Presbyterian minis- 
ter, skeptical concerning the marvelous things which 
he had heard, crossed the State on horseback tc 
attend the Logan County camp meeting, which 
after a critical examination, he described as follows 

There on the edge of the prairie, in Logan County, Ky. 
the multitudes came together and continued a number oi 
days and nights encamped on the ground, during which time 
worship was carried on in some part of the encampment. The 
scene was new to me and passing strange. It baffled descrip¬ 
tion. Many, very many, fell down as men slain in battle, 
. . . After lying for hours they obtained deliverance. The 
gloomy cloud that had covered their faces seemed gradually 
and visibly to disappear, and hope and smiles brightened 
into joy. They would rise shouting deliverance, and then 
would address the surrounding multitudes in language truly 
eloquent and impressive. That cannot be Satanic work which 
brings men to humble confession, to forsaking sin, to prayer, 
fervent praise and thanksgiving, and a sincere and affectionate 
exhortation to sinners to repent and come to Jesus, the 
Saviour. 

The news of this camp meeting spread over the 
country, and other communities copied this idea. 
Most memorable was the great camp meeting at 
Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in August, 1801. From 
twenty thousand to thirty thousand people attended 
everyday, according to the estimates of military men 
who were present and accustomed to enumerate vast 
assemblages of people. Presbyterian, Methodist, and 
Baptist ministers cooperated. Four or five preachers 


Evangelistic Methods 


51 


were usually preaching at the same hour in various 
parts of the camp. Many Methodists attended this 
meeting from Ohio, The revival thus begun extend¬ 
ed throughout Kentucky and on through Tennessee 
into Georgia and the Carolinas. Its far-reaching in¬ 
fluence into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois is shown by 
the large place given to this method of evangelism 
in the early history of these commonwealths. 

These were wonderful occasions and met the needs 
of the people in the time of few Churches and few 
preachers. Thousands who rarely heard preaching 
were spiritually nourished and thousands converted 
and added to the Church through these unique and 
often picturesque services, the quaint and lovely 
charm of which is a fond memory in the minds of 
those now living who enjoyed the delightful social 
and spiritual atmosphere and witnessed the marvel¬ 
ous scenes. However, as population has become 
dense, preachers have multiplied and every commu¬ 
nity has a Church and a preacher; the necessity of the 
camp meeting has disappeared, and with a very few 
exceptions the camp meeting is an institution of 
history. 

The City Mission .—In the city of New York many 
years ago a man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Jerry 
McAuley, were converted to Christianity. They 
were what are called the “down-and-outs,” “wharf 
thieves,” “jail birds.” Most of their lives had been 
spent in the prisons of New York, and they were 
notorious in the circles of New York’s officials. The 
conversion of Jerry McAuley and his wife is the out¬ 
standing miracle of grace in that great city. The 
former organized what is known as the Water Street 


52 


Methodist Evangelism 


Mission. Dr. Arthur T. Pierson once said, “If you 
would like to feel as if you were reading a new chap¬ 
ter of the Acts of the Apostles, it would be well foi 
you to visit the old Jerry McAuley Water Street 
Mission,” and to that sentiment Dr. J. Wilbur Chap¬ 
man added a hearty “amen.” 

Dr. John Wesley Johnson, the pastor of Old John 
Street Church, said: “Since coming to Old John 
Street and finding in that Church, among the most 
honored and reliable in its membership, converts 
from Water Street, and hearing from their lips the 
stories of redeeming grace, my interest in the Jerry 
McAuley Mission has so deepened that it is only 
second to that I have for the Church of which I am 
now pastor.” 

Samuel H. Hadley makes the following statement 
concerning this mission: “It is the connecting link 
between the lost, Godless world and the Church ol 
Christ. There are thousands of splendid men and 
women to-day in the slums of New York who are only 
waiting for some kind, friendly hand and heart tc 
help them out into God’s sunshine, men and womer 
who would make their mark and would make bettei 
soul winners for the awful lessons they have learned.’ 

For almost a half century this mission has run; and 
modeled by it, similar institutions have been estab 
lished in almost every city of the United States 
The annual record of these missions is the record o 
hundreds of lives, crushed and wrecked in sin, tha 
have been restored to the “beauty of holiness.” 

Their method is “the proclamation of salvatior 
through Jesus Christ, an unfaltering belief in th< 
value of personal testimony, a ministry of compas 


Evangelistic Methods 


53 


sion, and the gathering of storm-tossed souls into 
the harbor. Here is a place where the needy are 
more welcome than the affluent, the drunkard than 
the abstainer, the thief than the honest man, the 
sinner than the saint. Loving hearts and willing 
hands are freely at the disposal of the weary and 
the lost. The doors of the mission are closed to 
none; no man is repulsed, whether Christian or Jew, 
Protestant or Catholic, citizen or alien. The work¬ 
ers find joy in seeking the lost, in heartening those in 
whose souls hope is well-nigh extinguished, lifting 
the bruised and fallen, loving the unlovely, delivering 
in Christ many of them that are bound. The work 
is appallingly difficult; the poor fellows who find 
their way to the missions are in the main men who 
have forfeited their rights to confidence and fellow¬ 
ship, steeped in drink and depravity, their will power 
sacrificed to vicious lust for liquor, with all that was 
ever good in them subordinated to the lowest in¬ 
stincts of nature.” 

For years these moral wrecks have been rehabili¬ 
tated in soul and body and sent forth as joyous, 
happy Christians. The history of their lives and 
their testimony constitutes one of the highest trib¬ 
utes to the grace that saves to the uttermost. The 
men who work in these missions are laymen generally 
and men and women who have been saved through 
these missions. Many of our great evangelists who 
have gone forth in tabernacle meetings were saved 

through these city missions. 

These missions connect with the work of salvation 
a large benevolent ministry to the needy and the 
helpless. They constitute a kind of a daily and 


54 


Methodist Evangelism 


nightly routine the year round. After ministering to 
physical needs, they turn to the spiritual side, and 
with service of song, exhortation, and testimony 
similar to that of the Salvation Army, throughout 
the cities of our country they have done a great 
evangelistic work. 

The kind of work and the manner will be indicated 
by giving the story of two prominent and character¬ 
istic converts. The two most prominent missions 
among them all are what are generally known as the 
Jerry McAuley Mission in New York and the Pacific 
Garden Rescue Mission in Chicago. S. H. Hadley, 
who had charge of the Jerry McAuley Mission for 
many years, was converted in that mission, and 
Billy Sunday, the noted evangelist, was converted 
in the Pacific Garden Mission. The manner of their 
conversion is given below in the language of each. 

S. H. Hadley gives the following testimony: 

Many plans were turned over in my mind, but all were re¬ 
jected, and toward evening, at the suggestion of a fellow 
sinner, I went to the Jerry McAuley Cremorne Mission, No. 
104 West Thirty-Second Street. It was Sunday night, and 
the house was packed. With great difficulty I made my way 
through the crowded aisle to the space near the platform. 
There I saw that man of God, that apostle to the drunkard 
and outcast, Jerry McAuley. I glanced about the room and 
saw a mixed crowd, I assure you. It was the regular Rescue 
Mission audience that I have grown so familiar with since— 
pickpockets, thieves, drunkards, harlots, sporting men and 
women, and up near Jerry some glorious women too. 

Jerry arose amid deep silence and told his experience—that 
simple story I have heard so many hundred times since, but 
which was ever new—how he had been a “thief, an outcast, 
yes, a regular bum; but [he would add] I gave my heart to 
God, and he saved me from whisky and tobacco and every¬ 
thing that’s wicked and bad. I used to be one of the worst 


Evangelistic Methods 


55 


drunkards in the Fourth Ward, but Jesus came into my heart 
and took the whole thing out of me, and I don’t want it any 
more.” 

I never heard this kind of gospel before, with all the ser¬ 
mons I had heard, and I began to say to myself: “ I wonder if 
I, too, could be saved.” There was a sincerity about this 
man’s testimony that carried conviction with it. I listened 
to the testimony of probably twenty-five redeemed drunkards, 
every one of whom told my story. They had all been saved 
from rum. When the invitation was given, I raised my hand 
and soon was kneeling down with quite a crowd of drunkards. 

I was a total stranger, but I felt that I had sympathy, and it 
helped me. 

Jerry made the first prayer. I shall never forget it: “ Dear 
Saviour, won’t you look down in pity upon these poor souls? 
They need your help, Lord; they cannot get along without it. 
Blessed Jesus! these poor sinners have got themselves into a 
bad hole. Won't you help them out? Speak to them, Lord; 

do, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.” . ^ 

Then Mrs. McAuley prayed fervently for us. “Dear 
Saviour,” she said in closing, “I was a drunkard down in 
Cherry Hill fourteen years ago, and you saved me. Save 
these poor drunkards, for Jesus’ sake.” 

Then Jerry sang in his peculiar voice, still kneeling, 

“There is a fountain filled with blood 
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; 

And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 

Lose all their guilty stains.” 

I had heard that dear old song years before around our 
fireside at evening prayer, in my happy childhood, and it came 

back like a sweet memory. . „ 

Jerry’s hand was on my head. He said: “Brother, pray. 

“I can’t pray. Won’t you pray for me?” 

“All the prayers in the world won’t save you unless you 
pray for yourself.” I halted but a moment, and then with a 
breaking heart I said: “ Dear Jesus, can you help me? ” 

Dear reader, never with mortal tongue can I describe that 
moment. Although up to that time my soul had been filled 
with indescribable gloom, I felt the glorious brightness of the 


56 


Methodist Evangelism 


noonday sunshine in my heart. I felt that I was a free man. 
O, the precious feeling of safety, of freedom, of resting on 
Jesus! I felt that Christ with all his love and power had come 
into my life. From that moment until now, 1 have never 
wanted a drink of whisky, and have never seen money enough 
to make me take one. The precious touch of Jesus’s cleansing 
blood in my soul took from my stomach,my brain, my blood, 
and my imagination the hell-born desire for whisky. Halle¬ 
lujah! What a Saviour! 

Billy Sunday tells of his conversion in the following 
statement: 

Twenty-seven years ago I walked down a street in Chicago 
in company with some ball players who were famous in this 
world—some of them are dead now—and we went into a 
saloon. It was Sunday afternoon, and we got tanked up and 
then went and sat down on a corner. I never go by that street 
without thanking God for saving me. It was a vacant lot 
at that time. We sat down on a curbing. Across the street a 
company of men and women were playing on instruments— 
horns, flutes, and slide trombones—and the others were sing¬ 
ing the gospel hymns that I used to hear my mother sing back 
in the log cabin in Iowa and back in the old church where I 
used to go to Sunday school. 

And God painted on the canvas of my recollection and 
memory a vivid picture of the scenes of other days and other 

faces. 

Many have long since turned to dust. I sobbed and sobbed, 
and a young man stepped out and said: “We are going down 
to the Pacific Garden Mission. Won’t you come down to the 
mission? I am sure you will enjoy it. You can hear drunk¬ 
ards tell how they have been saved and girls tell how they 
have been saved from the red-light district.” 

I arose and said to the boys, “I’m through; I am going,” 
and I turned my back on them. Some of them laughed and 
some of them mocked me; one of them gave me encourage¬ 
ment; others never said a word. 

Twenty-seven years ago I turned and left that little group 
on the corner of State and Madison Streets, walked to the 


Evangelistic Methods 


57 

little mission, fell on my knees, and staggered out of sin and 
into the arms of the Saviour. 

I have given special emphasis to the city mission 
work because it carries so much of the old Methodist 
plan of saving and serving. Back to the people and 
to the methods that save to the uttermost—this is 
Methodism. 

The Salvation Army .—Patterning after the open- 
air meetings held throughout England by the Meth¬ 
odists, William Booth reopened open-air meetings in 
London in 1865 under the auspices of an organization 
known as the "Christian Mission.” In 1878 the 
name "Salvation Army” was assumed, military 
terms were adopted, and William Booth was called 
"General.” In 1880 George Railton was sent from 
England to organize the Salvation Army in the United 
States. The organization has grown rapidly. In 
1920 its flag was floating over 11,000 posts, distrib¬ 
uted in seventy countries and colonies, embracing 
every continent in the world. 

William Booth was a Methodist and organized his 
movement after the plan and spirit of the Wesleyan 
movement. As the Methodists have become rich 
and more prominent, they have builded and organ¬ 
ized more formally and have, like other denomi¬ 
nations, retired from the surging masses of the 
streets and marts of trade and are operating almost 
exclusively in retired and dignified buildings with 
formal furnishings and ritualistic services. The 
Salvation Army, following the Methodistic move¬ 
ment, has adhered to the plan by which Methodism 
originated. They have carried forward their evangel¬ 
ism on the plan of the primitive Methodists. The 


58 


Methodist Evangelism 


work of the Salvation Army has been far less digni¬ 
fied and stately in the character of preaching, prayer, 
and song. While the Methodists carried the gospel 
to the people in the streets, at the mines, shops, and 
marts of business, they were generally orderly and 
dignified in their forms of worship, and the preaching 
and singing were for the most part of a very high 
order. The Salvation Army has adopted a program 
of services far less substantial, and depend almost 
entirely on the power of Christian testimony and 
exhortation. They do, and have done, very little 
strong and convincing preaching such as was done 
by the Wesleys, Whitefield, and their followers. 
They have adopted in their singing a very inferior 
class of hymns, and, in an effort to render the singing 
popular on the streets, they have, in the judgment of 
many thoughtful Christians, gone very much too far 
in that direction. The Salvation Army has depended 
largely upon the converts of the movement for the 
workers, who, as a rule, have been from the masses of 
the people where their work has been conducted, 
and the movement has suffered for lack of strong and 
competent leaders and workers. 

Conceding the fact that the Salvation Army does 
a small amount of substantial gospel preaching, that 
their songs are of lamentably low order, and that 
their street services and other services are lacking in 
the higher and stronger elements that constitute 
worship and the ministry of the Word, yet they have 
proved successful and have demonstrated beyond 
question to all the Churches of Christendom the 
immense power and effectiveness of the following 
things: First, they have demonstrated the effective- 


Evangelistic Methods 


59 


ness of keeping the gospel with the masses, of 
sounding the gospel note in the streets and places 
where the busy, thoughtless, careless, promiscuous 
crowds are surging. 

Thousands of careless, drifting men and women 
have heard this gospel note amid their sinful plans 
and purposes and revelings. They have been brought 
under conviction and led back to lives of purity and 
Christian activity. Second, they have given an 
important and valuable lesson on adapting services 
to the masses. While they have, in the judgment of 
most people, gone too far in this direction and have 
lowered the dignity and reverence which always 
attach to divine worship, they have undoubtedly 
given a great and valuable lesson in the power of 
bringing gospel services into that popular and attrac¬ 
tive atmosphere that wins and holds the careless and 
indifferent and ultimately saves them. Third, they 
have given us another important lesson on the value 
of Christian testimony and exhortation. The 
Methodists formerly relied more on Christian testi¬ 
mony, in fact, this stating one to another the proc¬ 
esses of Christian experience, going over the path of 
conviction, prayer, surrender, and salvation, was one 
of the most powerful elements in early Methodist 
meetings. The value of Christian testimony cannot 
be overestimated. Fourth, they have given to all 
Christian denominations the important lesson of 
being always on the job, every day in the week and 
every night in the week. The Church of God will 
never capture the world with the church closed six 
days of the week. 

Connected with this organization there have been 


60 


Methodist Evangelism 


organized and operated rescue homes, shelters, 
boarding houses for women, slum settlements, em¬ 
ployment bureaus, free coal and ice distributing 
stations, missing friends’ bureaus, poor men’s law¬ 
yers, prison departments, antisuicidal bureaus, day 
nurseries, fresh air camps, and farm colonies. Eighty 
publications in some twenty languages have been 
circulated among more than one million readers. In 
practically every city in the United States the drum¬ 
beat of the Army corps may be heard from the streets 
every night, and the light of their evangelistic hall 
never dies out. The emphasis of conscious salvation 
and personal testimony have made the Salvation 
Army Methodistic. In fact, John Wesley started 
the Methodist Church very much like William Booth 
started the Salvation Army; each was fired with the 
spirit of evangelism, a burning desire to give the 
gospel of Jesus Christ to every creature. The 
Salvation Army finds it profitable to go on the streets 
every night, keep tugging at the moving masses of 
men, and keep the way open to the altar. This 
practical and undeniable demonstration teaches that 
the Church should follow the example. 

The Tabernacle Campaign .—These meetings are 
usually nondenominational and are designed to 
enlist the entire town or city in a supreme revival 
effort. The tabernacle meeting succeeded the 
camp meeting with many things in common. The 
tabernacle meeting in any town or city results from a 
community organization and cooperation. Usually 
the movement is started by some pastor or layman 
who has been aroused by personal contact with a 
revival elsewhere or who has received in his own 


Evangelistic Methods 


61 


work a baptism which gives spiritual vision. Groups 
of laymen or ministers, or both, are called together, 
and the interest begins. If interest enough can be 
created to involve the community, committees are 
appointed and the work is officially inaugurated. 
Some prominent vocational evangelist is secured; a 
large wooden structure, called the “tabernacle,” is 
provided for the meeting, or some hall or warehouse 
is engaged, and the day set to begin. The modern 
evangelist has a complete organization, which he 
brings with him for the conduct of the meeting. The 
tabernacle meetings usually last two or three weeks, 
according to the interest. The results are quite 
variable, depending upon the evangelist, the weather, 
and the other variable quantities that enter into 
this class of work. Some very fine and lasting com¬ 
munity work has been accomplished by the taber¬ 
nacle meeting, which, like all other movements, has 
its advantages and disadvantages. 

Some of the preachers are severely and unfavora¬ 
bly critical because they claim— 

1. That the movement is sporadic, superficial, 
short lived, and the reports of its success almost 
totally false. Pastors and laymen may correct this 
by selecting an honest evangelist and supervising 
the work. 

2. That the tabernacle meeting disorganizes the 
regular routine of Church and Sunday school work 
and demoralizes all regular Church activities. A 
little wise and brotherly planning could remedy this. 

3. That the services are so spectacular, entertain¬ 
ing, and novel that the regular Church services fol¬ 
lowing the tabernacle meetings seem dull and unin- 


62 Methodist Evangelism 

teresting. Perhaps a discovery has been made that 
can be helpful. 

4. That the evangelist, having concentrated his 
life work with all of his experiences into a series of 
sermons in which he is stimulated by the large crowd 
and the enthusiasm that goes with it, is enabled to 
give a series of sermons so interesting and often 
spectacular as to make the preaching of the regular 
pastor appear dull and commonplace. Here is an¬ 
other discovery that might help an open-eyed pastor 
and greatly improve preaching. 

5. That an evangelist and his party are so lionized 
and exploited that their departure leaves the ordi¬ 
nary pastor much more ordinary in the estimation 
of the people. This is pitiable jealousy. 

6. That the organized community, with the union 
of all the pastors and all the Churches and all the 
business organizations, produces such a magnificent 
working force, that the union of all the congrega¬ 
tions in a great tabernacle furnishes such an inspiring 
congregation, that the special chorister with the 
choir and musical instruments, added all together, 
create such an interesting and enthusiastic service as 
to render the ordinary congregational service by the 
pastor insignificant in the minds of those who have 
taken part in the great scenes and experiences at the 
tabernacle. There is no reason why a small group 
cannot be enthusiastic and full of life and power. 

7. That so much money is required to carry the 
tabernacle meeting successfully that, in the language 
of the street, “the game is not worth the candle.” 
This is never true—one soul is worth the money. 
This is another Gadara story. 


Evangelistic Methods 


63 


Added to these substantial criticisms are the 
various faults and foibles and supposed mistakes of 
the evangelist and all his party. If by Christian 
charity, cooperation, and good judgment the defects 
were wisely remedied by consensus of opinion and 
concert of action by the pastors, the benefits of a 
great city-wide movement might become incalcu¬ 
lable. 

In further answer to these criticisms, some of 
which have force, it is fair to say: 

1. That in unity there is strength, that an entire 
community coming together with all of its Christian 
energies can accomplish much more for a commu¬ 
nity than any individual Church. 

2. A careful study of the tabernacle evangelistic 
meetings in the various cities of the United States 
where reputable and substantial evangelists have 
done the work will undoubtedly show that great and 
lasting good has been accomplished. Strong business 
men have been enlisted by these meetings and 
brought into the Church who are to-day doing large 
and valuable service. Many notoriously wicked 
men who have been leaders in the community have 
been genuinely converted and brought to valuable 
cooperation with the Church. Many forms of vice 
have been checked and many utterly expelled from 
the community. Unless the work is utterly spuiious 
(which ought never to be unless the evangelist him¬ 
self is a humbug), Church members will be greatly 
revived, all moral purposes will be stimulated, the 
community spirit will be fostered, united Christian 
effort will be encouraged, the lorces of evil will be 
intimidated by the organization of the moral forces, 


64 


Methodist Evangelism 


and a better and stronger moral atmosphere will be 
left in the community. 

3. For a minister to throw up the white flag, sur¬ 
render his own personality, and complain at any 
series of good sermons or interesting services is an 
admission that he needs in his own ministry some of 
the qualities he has criticized in the evangelist. The 
whole is always more important than any part, and 
the community should be considered first and indi¬ 
vidual Churches and individual interests second. It 
could hardly be conceived by any just and reasona¬ 
ble mind that a series of three weeks of sound and 
sane preaching, of fine and helpful singing, and a 
cooperative and friendly community fellowship in a 
united Christian work could be fruitless. The 
amount of good, of course,would be variable, depend¬ 
ing upon the character of the preaching and the 
method of conducting the meetings. 

4. As to the expenses of the meeting, they are usu¬ 
ally so thoroughly and well distributed through the 
community as not seriously to affect anyone. A 
circus comes to the town, spends one day with two 
performances, and often takes out from one-fourth 
to one-half of the amount which evangelistic services 
cost for three weeks. The cost is so slight to each and 
so evenly distributed that no one feels it. 

When any picture is enlarged, defects are more 
readily observed. In nearly every"Veligious move¬ 
ment, to the critical there will be much to criticize, 
but every revival effort in community, town, or city 
(if the parties leading it are consistent in Christian 
character and orthodox in doctrine) may result in 
great good, even though it may be necessary to over- 


Evangelistic Methods 


65 


look eccentricities, peculiarities, and perhaps faults 
in person and service for the general good of the 
community. No human agencies are perfect. In all 
evangelistic work the greatest charity should be 
exercised, and the one question, “Is anybody being 
saved ?” should be primary. Every evangelist has 
his own peculiar style, organization, and helpers. 
Wisdom covers one’s faults, looks charitably on 
human frailties, and gives credit for any good accom¬ 
plished. It is impossible to reach and stir great 
cities without organized and cooperated movements 
large enough to command the attention of the people. 
The history of these great city-wide movements will 
show that a few prominent citizens are reached and 
brought into Christian life and activity who could 
never have been reached by Church revivals. 

Sunday School Evangelism .—The next method of 
evangelism is that conducted in the Sunday schools 
or the Church schools. More attention is being paid 
of late than ever before to this class of evangelism. 
Intelligent Sunday school workers are studying the 
various methods of leading the children of the Church 
into a conscious salvation through Jesus Christ. 

One of the greatest improvements in the Sunday 
school work has been the organization of the Sunday 
school into departments and arranging every pupil 
in the department to which his age and educational 
accomplishments would naturally put him. This is 
known as the Graded School , and the word “graded 
is running into everything connected with the Sunday 
schools—“graded” teachers, “graded” lessons, 
“graded” music, and “graded” evangelism. We 
are learning at last to adapt our methods to our sub- 
5 


66 


Methodist Evangelism 


jects. The methods to be used in the evangelization 
of children from 7 to 12 are quite different from those 
that should be used in the evangelization of those 
in the teen age or adult departments. 

The fact is being more and more impressed upon 
this age that the Christian Church is made up 
largely of those who are converted in childhood. 
The World’s Sunday School Association made an 
investigation based upon the experience of 272 men, 
and found that the average age at the time of con¬ 
version was 16 years. The British and Canadian Sun¬ 
day schools made a similar investigation of 1,000 
members and ascertained that 128 were convert¬ 
ed between the ages of 8 and 12, 392 between 13 and 
16 years, 322 between 17 and 20, 118 between 21 
and 24, and only 40 between 25 and 60. 

Dr. John R. Mott gives the figures on a careful 
investigation of 1,000. He found that 548 were con¬ 
verted under 20 years of age, 337 between 20 and 
30, 96 between 30 and 40, 15 between 40 and 50, 3 
between 50 and 60, and only one between 60 and 90. 

Drew Theological Seminary made a careful inves¬ 
tigation of 776 of her first graduates and found that 
the average age of conversion was 16.4 years. 

Another authentic investigation of 500 Christian 
workers reveals the fact that 481 were not only 
converted but received the call to the special work 
before they were 15 years of age. It is a well-estab¬ 
lished statistical fact that 70 percent of all conversions 
occur prior to 21 years of age and that 96 per cent 
occur under 25. It is quite clear, therefore, that the 
great field for evangelism is the Church school. 

These statistics reveal two facts: 


Evangelistic Methods 


67 


1. That children are easily reached for salvation 
and Church membership. 

2. That the adults are being sadly neglected. It 
requires less courage to approach a child, and the 
child responds much more readily to the gospel 
appeal. The difficulty of approach to the adult is 
the cause of the appalling neglect. The hopeful 
feature in the child and adult evangelism in the 
Sunday school lies in the new and practical grading 
and organizing the Sunday school for specific evan¬ 
gelistic work. 

The adult classes throughout the Church are 
organized for special and effective evangelism. The 
combination of men into large Brotherhood and 
Wesley Classes forms a fraternity bond which gives 
fine opportunity for personal work and for class work 
in evangelism. The modern pastor is blind who 
does not see the beckoning light fall on the golden 
harvest field of the Sunday school. 

The late Dr. Robert Stuart MacArthur, the popu¬ 
lar and successful New York pastor, said in the latter 
years of his ministry: “It is pitiful to think how we 
often neglect the child and then labor with agonizing 
prayer and heroic effort for the conversion of men 
and women.” 

Mr. Spurgeon, the great London evangelistic 
pastor, said: “I have more satisfaction in those who 
have decided before ten years of age than those at 
forty.” 

The pastor and the superintendent must be looked 
to for organization and initiative in the Sunday 
school evangelism, both for the child and the adult. 
As the Sunday school is designed to supplement the 


68 Methodist Evangelism 

home in religious training, there should be the most 
intimate and sympathetic connection between the 
home and the Sunday school. The work normally 
begins in the home. The parent must be aroused to 
the importance of the Sabbath school and the neces¬ 
sity of the early conversion of the child. The work 
in the home is twofold: arousing the parents to con¬ 
scious and urgent responsibility for the child, and 
the use of the child in the Sunday school as a key to 
the home and the opportunity for interesting the 
parents. 

Frank L. Brown gives an authentic account of a 
Western pastor who secured seven hundred children 
for his Cradle Roll. He took every child as a key 
to the home from which it came, and by a careful 
system of visitation upon the homes succeeded in 
bringing three hundred of the parents into his 
Church. 

If the pastor and the Sunday school superintendent 
fully realize the tremendous opportunity, they may 
literally set on fire every teacher with a zeal to bring 
every pupil in the school to salvation and Church 
membership. If pastor, superintendent, and teacher 
are fully awake to the supreme opportunity, all kinds 
of agencies, plans, and efficient organizations will 
result. Lists of the unconverted will be cautiously 
and carefully made; circles of prayer and personal 
workers will be organized; group meetings of various 
kinds will be held looking to the conversion of both 
children and adults of the Sunday school. The 
routine work of the Sunday school carried on with no 
burning, absorbing, and obsessing interest in the 
personal salvation of the children and adults of the 


Evangelistic Methods 


69 


Sunday school would constitute a tragedy in the life 
of modern Sunday schools. 

The slogan of every Sunday school should be, 
first, “ Bring into the Sunday school every boy and 
girl, man and woman available in the community,” 
and then, “Every pupil an active member of the 
Church.” There are approximately 900,000 boys 
and girls in Southern Methodist homes between the 
ages of twelve and twenty-one. What an inviting 
field for Christian endeavor! Added to this is the 
entire adult population, like a harvest field waiting 
for the reapers. 

Sunday school buildings are being remodeled, new 
and commodious ones are being built, and we are 
certainly on the threshold of an era of a great evangel¬ 
istic awakening in the Church, centering in and organ¬ 
ized around the Sunday school. 

Church Revival and Personal Evangelism .—The 
next evangelistic method is that which is known as 
the Church revival, which is led either by the pastor 
of the Church, a visiting pastor, or some evangelist. 
This form of evangelism is the one which should be 
made the most common of all the methods and will 
be considered in another address, as will also the 
subject of personal evangelism, which is also very 
important. 


IV 


THE METHODIST CHURCH AND EVAN¬ 
GELISM 

The history of Methodism is a history of revivals. 
After John Wesley returned from Georgia to England 
in 1738, he and his brother Charles and George White- 
field formed a kind of evangelistic partnership. 
They set the first example in England of evangelistic 
services in the open air. Shut out from the Estab¬ 
lished Churches by the clergy, they preached in the 
open air and market places, at the coal mines, in 
houses and barns, and in open fields. 

Their converts were held in contempt by the 
Established Churches. Wesley, therefore, was forced 
to organize them into Societies for mutual edification 
and spiritual development. He called these Societies 
the “ United Societies.” When the independence of 
the American colonies was recognized, Wesley saw 
the necessity for providing a separate Church organi¬ 
zation for the Methodists of America. He therefore 
favored the organization of the “Methodist Church,” 
and the first class was formed by Philip Embury in 
1766. In 1769 Boardman and Pilmoor, the first 
missionaries sent to America, arrived in New York. 
In 1771 Francis Asbury arrived and was appointed 
by Wesley as superintendent of the American So¬ 
cieties. 

The Methodist Societies both in England and 
America were distinctly evangelistic. The funda¬ 
mental doctrines adopted at the outset by these 
( 70 ) 


The Methodist Church and Evangelism 71 

Societies were such doctrines as favored evangelism. 
Methodism, from the start, emphasized the doctrines 
of assurance, the witness of the Spirit, and perfect 
love. ‘‘Methodist polity, like the Methodist con¬ 
fession, is to be understood only by regarding Meth¬ 
odism as a revival and missionary movement.” 
Methodism arose out of independent evangelism. 
The Wesleys and Whitefield went out undirected 
except by divine providence. They made their own 
appointments, gathered the people together, and 
preached evangelistic sermons. This was true of 
their work in America as well as in England—Wesley 
under the trees in Georgia, Robert Strawbridge in 
the groves of Maryland, and George Whitefield 
preaching to twenty thousand under the skies on 
Boston Common furnished the opening scenes of 
American Methodism. Out of this free, independent, 
God-directed evangelism, Methodism was born. 

Bishop McTyeire started his “History of Meth¬ 
odism” with the statement: 

It was not a new doctrine but new life the first Methodists 
sought for themselves and for others. . . . The mission of 
Luther was to reform a corrupt Christianity; that of Wesley 
to revive a dying one. . . . The Methodists came forth as 
evangelists. They persuaded men. With existing institu¬ 
tions and creeds, they had no quarrel. . . . Their con¬ 

troversy was not with Church or State authorities, but with 
sin and Satan; and their one object was to save souls. 

While Methodism was organized early in the Wes¬ 
leyan movement, much of its evangelistic work was 
done in a voluntary and unrestrained and independ¬ 
ent sort of way. The first Methodist evangelist to 
arrive in America was Robert Williams. He was 


72 


Methodist Evangelism 


under no special organization, operated independent¬ 
ly, went where he chose, and preached in homes and 
groves and wherever he could gather the people. His 
work centered in Virginia and North Carolina. 
Through his ministry Jesse Lee was converted, and 
as an independent evangelist he became the Method¬ 
ist flaming torch who more than any other one man 
planted Methodism in New England. In the same 
year came John King, another of Wesley’s converts. 
He began his ministry in the “Potter’s field” in 
Philadelphia. He went at will and preached wher¬ 
ever he could gather a congregation. 

When Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor, the 
first regularly appointed missionaries by the Wes¬ 
leyan Church, were sent to America, George White- 
field was on board another vessel crossing the Atlan¬ 
tic at the same time. They came as regularly ap¬ 
pointed missionaries of the Wesleyan movement. 
Whitefield came as an independent evangelist. He 
went at will and preached under his own management 
and appointments. 

A group of Irish Methodists, Philip Embury, Paul 
Heck, and Barbara Heck, and others who located in 
New York and assisted in building the first Meth¬ 
odist church in New York, did their evangelistic 
work for the most part under their own initiative. 

Robert Strawbridge, a local preacher who built the 
old Sam’s Creek Log House in the backwoods of 
Maryland, claimed to be the first Methodist Church 
in America, was a local preacher and worked under 
his own plans. All these pioneers who landed in 
America fresh from the great Wesleyan revival in 
England and Ireland were, for the most part, inde- 


The Methodist Church and Evangelism 73 

pendent evangelists. Many of them had the person¬ 
al approval of John Wesley, but were neither offi¬ 
cially directed nor authorized. 

It is an unaccountable fact that the Church, born 
out of independent evangelism, should in its organi¬ 
zation and economy make no provision for free and 
independent evangelistic work. All through the 
history of the Church holy men moved of God, like 
the Wesleys, Whitefield, Robert Williams, Jesse Lee, 
John King, Robert Strawbridge, and others, have 
felt called to give their time and talent exclusively to 
evangelistic work; but in our Methodist economy, 
for a hundred years, there was no provision for such 
men and little encouragement for that class of work. 
Hundreds of our preachers with extraordinary evan¬ 
gelistic gifts would have wrought wonders if the 
field had been opened. 

There was an arrangement in our itinerant system 
by which a preacher could be appointed professor 
in a Christian college, secretary of some board, col¬ 
porteur, editor of a religious paper, and to other 
religious work; but if any man felt called to devote his 
whole time to revival work, he was forced to retire 
from the regular itineracy, to surrender his Confer¬ 
ence relations, and become a local preacher, there 
being no provision for such men in our economy. 
Every man who located and followed the leadings of 
the Spirit in this particular work was considered 
somewhat out of order. 

Rev. Sam P. Jones, one of the most effective evan¬ 
gelists the Southern Methodist Church ever pro¬ 
duced, held a meeting in Nashville, Tenn., of such 
character as to make him at once a national figure. 


74 


Methodist Evangelism 


That meeting, by actual results, was one of the most 
remarkable meetings ever held in the Southern 
States. At the close of that meeting no one who 
attended it doubted the fact that Sam Jones should 
devote his whole time to evangelistic meetings. God 
was calling him to this specific work; he realized it, 
and those who had observed his success in this work 
realized it. He visited other cities in succession with 
the same wonderful success. In the midst of the 
most remarkable work ever accomplished by any 
evangelist in America, he was notified by the bishop 
in charge of his Conference that he would have to do 
one of two things: take a specific charge in his own 
Conference or locate. There was no provision in the 
Methodist economy for a general evangelist. Mr. 
Jones located with a sad heart and pursued his work 
to the end of his life as a local preacher. 

I was providentially thrown with Mr. Jones in one 
of his great tent meetings in Jackson, Miss. He 
became ill and called me to his assistance. I assisted 
him in that meeting and accompanied him to Wesson, 
Miss., and Trenton, Tenn., at which places thousands 
of people attended the great tabernacle meetings and 
hundreds were converted. At the close of these meet¬ 
ings my call to evangelistic work was as definite as 
my call to the ministry had been. In order to pursue 
this work, I was forced to give up my Conference 
relations and take the rank of a local preacher. 

Only a few years ago the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, made a provision in its economy for 
authorizing and indorsing evangelists. For three- 
fourths of a century the word “evangelist’’ was not 
in the Discipline. 


The Methodist Church and Evangelism 75 

For many years an unwarranted and unwise preju¬ 
dice existed against the men who, like Whitefield and 
others, felt a call to go forth as God might direct and 
devote their whole time to evangelism, and for many 
years no provision was made in the economy of the 
Church for such men. The Church at last awakened 
to the fact that such men are definitely equipped and 
called to this kind of work and may be used of the 
Church to accomplish great things, and provision was 
made for them in our law. We are learning to use all 
our forces with that wisdom and liberality that 
characterized early Methodism, that spirit that 
faced Thomas Maxfield, the layman breaking all 
precedent and preaching without ordination from a 
bishop’s hands. The mother of John Wesley said to 
her son: “Do nothing till you hear him—he is as 
much called to preach as you are.” Wesley heard 
Maxfield and threw all questions to the wind by 
saying, “It is the Lord,” and the long procession of 
lay preachers began to spread the gospel over the 
world. This was Wesleyan Methodism. 

A Church born in a revival and organized under 
revival influences and operations would naturally 
carry in its customs those things which both foster 
and efficiently carry forward evangelism. The cus¬ 
toms and characteristics of the Methodist Church are 
all distinctly evangelistic. 

Extemporaneous Preaching .—A significant custom 
of the Methodist Church is “extemporaneous 
preaching.” This word must not be construed ac¬ 
cording to its meaning (without time), but according 
to the generally accepted meaning. This does not 
indicate that the preacher will appear in the pulpit 


76 


Methodist Evangelism 


without preparation. Our brethren of the Hard¬ 
shell Baptist Church teach that the preacher is to go 
before the congregation totally without preparation, 
depending on the Lord to fill his mouth, which has 
often resulted in the mouth being filled with wind. 
By extemporaneous preaching I would indicate that 
class of sermons which are not reduced to manu¬ 
scripts, which do not follow strictly the laws of homi¬ 
letic construction, but rather leave the preacher in 
the presence of a passage of Scripture over which he 
has thoroughly thought and prayed, to be led and 
empowered by the Holy Spirit in its exposition. 

This custom would in no wise give sympathy or 
encouragement to idleness or looseness or careless¬ 
ness in the preparation of a sermon. It is the kind of 
preaching which accepts and emphasizes the offices 
of the Holy Spirit in the matter of selecting and the 
manner of impressing the truths prepared. I think 
that every man who has had large experience in 
evangelistic preaching and in conducting revival 
services, whether he belong to the Methodist de¬ 
nomination or to some other, will readily admit that 
there have been times all through his ministry when 
he has felt this divine power and has realized a gift of 
speech, power of expression, and, over and above all, 
a power in his speech and expression which he recog¬ 
nized as the Holy Spirit. He realized that he spoke 
as the Spirit gave him utterance—“had liberty.” 
This character of preaching has been peculiarly 
customary among the Methodists from the origin of 
the Methodist Church. 

While Wesley was a prodigious writer and spoke 
usually from manuscript, his most significant testi- 


The Methodist Church and Evangelism 


77 


mony is that when this unusual power came upon 
him he left his manuscript and spoke extempora¬ 
neously as the Spirit gave him utterance. 

“ The Mourners' Bench ,"—The Methodist Church 
has used what has been known among us through all 
the history as the “ mourners’ bench,” and has held to 
the doctrine as taught by our Saviour, “ Blessed are 
they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” 

John Wesley in his evangelistic work during his 
stay in America was the first to make use of this 
method of calling men and women forward to a 
designated place for the special consideration of the 
question of their soul’s salvation. Hundreds and 
thousands of men and women have accepted the call 
of the earnest Methodist preacher, have presented 
themselves at the altar rail or some specific seat 
designated as the place of prayer and repentence, 
and from this specific place of confession, repentance, 
prayer, and faith they have accepted the Saviour with 
great joy and have testified to the genuineness of this 
work by a consistent and active Christian life. It will 
be a sad day when the Methodist Church surrenders 
this custom, which has been her characteristic 
method of leading men and women to Christ. 

The Methodist Church has never attached any 
merit to the mourners’ bench other than convenience 
and adaptability. When a soul has been convicted 
through the preaching of the Word, there are steps 
to be taken further before a satisfactory Christian 
experience is obtained. These steps are explained in 
the terms “sorrow for sin,” “public confession of 
sins,” “surrender of sins,” and “the acceptance of 
Jesus Christ by faith as a personal Saviour. In 


78 


Methodist Evangelism 


all the past history of Methodism the mourners’ 
bench has proved a convenient and well-adapted 
place for the accomplishment of each and every step 
from conviction to conversion. 

When one presents himself at the mourners’ bench, 
he makes a strong and emphatic public confession of 
his determination to leave the world and to move 
toward God. As he kneels in prayer, his act secures 
for him the united and suppliant prayers of all the 
congregation. He singles himself out in such a way 
that he may receive such sympathy, instruction, and 
cooperation as will make the way clearer and easier 
to the Cross and to salvation. The Methodist 
“mourners’ bench’’ through the years has furnished 
converts for every Christian denomination and has 
peopled its own Church with the saved. 

Congregational Singing .—The Methodist Church 
is famous for what we call “congregational singing.” 
Of course all the other denominations sing, but there 
is a peculiarity in Methodist singing. Outside of the 
negroes, we excel all other denominations in singing 
the old-fashioned songs. There is a heartiness and 
enthusiasm about Methodist congregational singing 
that stamps it as unique. We are a singing people. 
“Let all the people sing” is the familiar call from the 
earnest Methodist preacher. No one ever witnessed 
a great revival without great singing. Psalms and 
hymns and spiritual .songs are a part of the tide of 
salvation. 

One reason for the lack of spirituality in many of 
our Churches lies in the fact that the singing has been 
transferred from the congregation to a few trained 
voices who use the sacred hymns for the most part to 


The Methodist Church and Evangelism 79 

display musical skill. When a trained voice is used to 
give forth in the best way for the best purpose a gos¬ 
pel song for the glory of God and the good of the 
people, we call this worshipful singing. When a 
gospel song is used under the pretense of worship to 
display an especially trained voice, we call this a 
sacrilege and a profanity. When the culture and 
technique of a voice is to be exploited, a secular song 
and a secular platform should be used. If the revival 
spirit is to remain in the Church, we must preserve 
congregational singing. 

Testimony .—The class meeting originated early in 
the history of Methodism. Nothing is more heart¬ 
ening or helpful to Christians or more convincing to 
sinners than the recital of Christian experience. This 
peculiar custom among the Methodists to testify in 
the public congregation and to make known the fact 
and experiences of personal salvation has been a 
power which cannot be estimated. A revival Church 
is a testifying Church. 

Shouting. —Again, we are a “shouting” people. 
There is a good deal of “ turning the cup when it isn’t 
full,” but there are unquestionably times when the 
cup overflows, when it is a spiritual triumph to pro¬ 
claim our salvation ecstatically. There are times, 
notwithstanding the critics versus the mystics, when 
the Holy Spirit so fills and thrills that it is a luxury to 
cry, “Hallelujah!” “Glory to God!” On the day of 
Pentecost the world decided that the Christians were 
drunk, but the happy, rejoicing, Spirit-filled throng 
had an inward testimony which the world could not 
understand. Methodism in the latter years is be¬ 
coming more formal, technical, and cold. We need 


80 


Methodist Evangelism 


the old-fashioned revival spirit to bring us back to 
the glorious informalities by which the Holy Spirit 
has accomplished his greatest work in the Church. 

Revival Seasons .—The Methodist Church has in all 
her history enjoyed “revival seasons” and thorough¬ 
ly indorsed the “times of refreshing,” which consti¬ 
tute another characteristic. The annual revival 
season has been as customary with the Methodists as 
the feasts to the Jewish Church in Jerusalem. 

To the observant, times and seasons are every¬ 
where recognized. The farmer knows the winter 
when nature rests and sleeps, the springtime when 
nature awakens to activity, and the summer of 
harvest. He fallows the ground, sows, cultivates, 
and harvests by times and seasons. 

The merchant knows the seasons of his trade. He 
does not exploit in show windows overcoats in June 
or palm beach suits in January. Every calling of 
life has seasons and opportunities, special times of 
activity. The Church is natural and orderly—sea¬ 
sons and opportunities come and go in the Church as 
elsewhere. 

A perennial revival in the Church would be con¬ 
trary to the whole teaching of nature and the Bible. 
The alert and efficient Churchman has an eye wide 
open to the seasons and chances, to the big word 
“opportunity.” The theory that God has “set 
times to favor Zion” and will be gracious in the 
bestowment of his grace only at these fixed times 
must be carefully guarded. God has here and there 
throughout the Scriptures directed his children to 
wait for the divine movements. 

When David was leading the Israelites against 


The Methodist Church and Kvajigelism 81 

their enemy, the Philistines, God set a time of wait¬ 
ing. He directed David to make an attack upon his 
enemies at the mulberry trees and directed him to 
wait until he heard the sound of the " going in the 
tops of the mulberry trees.” Let it be remembered, 
however, that David had entered the war against his 
enemies, had already gained one great victory, and 
“ the Philistines yet again spread themselves abroad 
in the valley.” The war was on, the organization 
was complete, the time of waiting was in the midst of 
the war. In all great religious movements there are 
periods of waiting and prayer as well as periods of 
the sound of the "going in the mulberry trees.” 

God directed the disciples to wait in the upper 
room in Jerusalem. The company had organized and 
mobilized and were ready for service; they were 
simply waiting for power. 

In every great revival there are seasons of waiting. 
This must not be taken for the superstitious fallacy 
that God is moody—that he is favorable or unfavor¬ 
able to our calls by times or moods. The human con¬ 
ditions are in our hands; when we meet fully our part, 
God never fails. A revival is a season, the particular 
time to be fixed by intelligent servants of God. We 
must admit in all of our work everywhere the fact of 
providential leadings and divine indications. 

The "set time to favor Zion” is the time when 
Zion sets her house in order so that she may receive 
the Hoy Spirit. The set time is the hour when the 
servant of God stands in the valley of dry bones and 
cries, "O ye dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord”; 
when Isaiah cries, ‘ 'Awake, awake; put on thy strength, 
O Zion,” or "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye 
6 


82 


Methodist Evangelism 


to the waters”; when Jeremiah cries, “Return, ye 
backsliding children, and I will heal your backslid¬ 
ing.” It is the hour when “Zion travaileth,” when 
“sons and daughters are born unto God.” It is the 
“time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.” 
It is the hour when the “pool is troubled,” when 
rumbling feet are heard, and “Jesus of Nazareth 
passeth by.” It is the hour when Peter, standing up 
with the eleven, cries: “Ye men of Judea, and all ye 
that dwell at Jerusalem, hearken to my words.” It 
is the harvest time when purpling fruit and golden 
grain await the coming husbandmen; it is the intense, 
immense hour when God waits to save. 

The Methodist Church has accepted the fact that 
revivals sometimes “break out” and has always been 
alert to sudden and unexpected manifestations of 
Divine power. The past history of the Church 
establishes the fact that here and there, in answer to 
the consecration and prayer of devoted groups, un¬ 
usual manifestations of the Spirit have been sudden¬ 
ly witnessed; men and women have been suddenly 
brought under conviction and revival movements 
have started with or without the instrumentality of 
the preacher as the initiative. 

The revival of 1857 in the United States is a signifi¬ 
cant case of the “breaking out” of a revival. On 
September 23, 1857, Jeremiah Lamphier, a conse¬ 
crated layman of New York city, called a noonday 
prayer meeting for business men in the North Dutch 
Church on Fulton Street. Three persons, then six, 
then twenty met together at these noonday prayei 
meetings, and the number increased daily. It was 
like a “match to oiled tow.” There was no exhorta- 


The Methodist Church and Evangelism 83 

tion, no preaching. The people were met for simple 
prayer services. The Holy Spirit suddenly came 
upon them as he came upon the group in the upper 
room at Jerusalem. The power of the meeting was 
noised abroad, and the people began to flock to the 
old North Dutch Church. It soon became far too 
small to accommodate the audiences, and the old 
John Street Methodist Church was opened, then 
other places, and in a little while the whole city of 
New York was in prayer. Great power was mani¬ 
fested among the Christian people, and sinners began 
to cry for mercy. Conversions were witnessed in all 
the prayer meetings, and marvelous spiritual power 
was exhibited. 

The movement quickly spread to Boston, Philadel¬ 
phia, Washington, Cincinnati, and to the then far 
western city of Chicago, including hundreds of 
smaller towns and cities throughout the land. Tens 
of thousands were gathered in these daily meetings. 
Telegrams were sent hither and thither notifying 
parents of the salvation of wayward sons, and the 
wires were busy carrying tidings of this wonderful 
movement. 

It is estimated that a hundred thousand conver¬ 
sions occurred within four months and that four 
hundred thousand were converted the first year. 
The total of the great work was conservatively esti¬ 
mated at one million additions to the various Chris¬ 
tian Churches. 

The revival that began in Northampton in 1734, 
which was called the'‘Great Awakening,’' was a re¬ 
vival which "broke out.” Quite distinct from the 
revival of 1857 this revival broke out under great 


84 


Methodist Evangelism 


preaching. Some of the most remarkable men of 
Church history wrought in this period. The first 
manifestation of the outbreaking of this great 
movement, under the preaching of Dr. Jonathan 
Edwards, came when New England had departed 
from the old Puritan standard and had sunk to 
shocking practices of sin and worldliness. 

Dr. Increase Mather, in his book entitled “The 
Glory Departing from New England,” like Jere¬ 
miah of old, bewailed the condition in these plaintive 
words: “O New England, New England, look to it 
that the glory be not removed from thee, for it be¬ 
gins to go. O degenerate New England, what art 
thou come into at this day? How are those sins be¬ 
come so common in thee that were not so much as 
heard of in the land?” 

Another contemporary reports the condition in 
this language: “Religion was in a very low state, 
professors generally dead and lifeless, and the body 
of our people careless, carnal, and secure.” In these 
degenerate times the plain gospel preaching of this 
extraordinary pastor started the revivals, or, more 
accurately, he was delivering great gospel messages 
when the power of God began suddenly to be mani¬ 
fested in his Church. In his own language: “Then 
it was that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily 
to set in and wonderfully to work among us, and there 
were very suddenly one after another five or six per¬ 
sons who were to all appearances savingly converted 
and some of them wrought upon in a very remarkable 
way. Presently a great and earnest concern about 
the great things of religion and the eternal world be¬ 
came universal in all parts of the town, and among 


The Methodist Church and Evangelism 85 

persons of all degrees and ages; the noise among the 
dry bones waxed louder and louder; all other talk but 
about spiritual and eternal things was soon thrown 
by; all the conversation in all companies, and upon 
all occasions, was upon these things only, unless so 
much as was necessary for people carrying on their 
ordinary secular business. Other discourse than of 
the things of religion would scarcely be tolerated in 
any company. . . . There was scarcely a single 

person in the town, either old or young, that was left 
unconcerned about the great things of the eternal 
world.” 

People from neighboring towns flocked to North¬ 
ampton to witness this remarkable display of Divine 
power, and the work spread, reaching rapidly South 
Hadley, Suflield, Sunderland, Deerfield, Hatfield, 
Northfield, and many other points throughout New 
England. There was a remarkable revival at 
Newark, N. J., under the ministry of Jonathan Dick¬ 
inson, which, beginning mainly among the young 
people, increased in power and extent, until by 
November following the whole town was brought 
under its influence. At Harvard, Mass., under the 
ministry of Rev. John Secomb, a similar work of 
grace began in September of the same year. In 
March of the next year at New Londonderry, Pa., 
under the ministry of Rev. Samuel Blair, there was 
an awakening of considerable interest. Thus was 
New England swept with a revival that literally broke 
out under great preachers and greater preaching. 

After the ten days of prayer in the upper room 
something suddenly happened. In answer to conse¬ 
crated, earnest, and systematic prayer, the Holy 


86 


Methodist Evangelism 


Spirit descended and filled the house. When the 
upper room group felt the power, the first impulse, as 
always, was to carry it to the people. They rushed 
down in the streets of Jerusalem. The great throng 
gathered, and God laid his hand upon a plain, un¬ 
trained layman, fresh from his nets and, his boat and 
this new and untried layman without ordination or 
orders took charge of the revival in the religious 
metropolis of the world and under his preaching a 
revival “ broke out.” There was nothing in the words 
of the speaker to overcome the life-long religious prej¬ 
udices which had inspired the crucifixion of Jesus and 
in a single day bring thousands to new life and a 
new thinking, a change from Jew to Christian—it was 
a miracle of power that suddenly fell on them. 

Revival Atmosphere .—Methodists have recognized 
what they have termed a “revival atmosphere.” 
In the experience of all who have passed through 
Methodist revivals “warm” and “cold” have been 
Methodist terms throughout her evangelistic history 
to indicate the religious state of the Church. In 
Methodist parlance, “when the Church grows cold, 
no sinners are saved; when the Church grows warm 
and spiritual, we expect men and women to be born 
unto God.” 

A revival has reference to the state of the Church. 
The word means to “live again.” When a Church 
has lost vitality and power, has weakened to a 
standard below which she is able to “bring forth 
sons and daughters”—realizes her condition, and 
betakes herself to repentance and prayer, finds for¬ 
giveness and refreshing from the presence of the 
Lord, we call this state a “revival.” When the 


The Methodist Church and Evangelism 87 


Church reaches this state, she becomes attractive 
and dynamic. Whether a body is in its first life or in 
a revival, the condition is both vital and vitalizing. 

When the pipes in a nursery are cold, the plants 
cease to grow and the seeds refuse to germinate. 
When the fire is kindled in the furnace and the pipes 
warm up, an atmosphere is created in which the 
plants begin a vigorous growth and seed burst into 
life. Under such an atmosphere the plant must 
grow, and the seed must burst into life. The laws of 
nature are compelling. 

When the fires are kindled on the altars of the 
Church, an atmosphere is produced in which life and 
growth are natural, normal, and compelling. The 
revived soul must grow, the dead soul must burst 
into life. In the holy heated atmosphere of Pente¬ 
cost, when fiery emblems blazed on the person and 
burning words fell from fired human tongues, saints 
grew to new heights, caught new visions of life and 
service, sold their possessions, and devoted self and 
property to the Church. In an atmosphre like this 
it was natural for sinners to cry out: “Men and 

brethren, what shall we do?” 

In an atmosphere which compels life and growth, 
which literally forces saints into broader visions and 
greater service and compels the sinner to cry out, 
“What must we do?” the preacher’s natural or ac¬ 
quired gifts are secondary. The atmosphere in 
which the miracles of life and growth are produced 
is capable also of producing the miraculous sermons 
and giving a marvelous power to the most common¬ 
place speech. The old Methodists called it “having 

liberty.” 


88 


Methodist Evangelism 


Effective praying and good preaching always go 
together with fine results; and effectual, fervent, and 
prevailing prayer enables a very inferior preacher to 
preach an unexpected and powerful sermon rich in 
fruits. “Began to speak with other tongues, as the 
Spirit gave them utterance” is the revealing fact at 
Pentecost. The gift of utterance signifies the gift 
of the Spirit of something to utter or a new and gra¬ 
cious facility for uttering what one has. In either 
case the preacher will give the effective message 
when the Holy Spirit comes to his aid and “gives 
him utterance.” 

The chief difficulty in the revival lies in the diffi¬ 
culty of securing the effective upper-room prayer 
which brings the Spirit and the Power—the “revi¬ 
val atmosphere.” We are taught that “when Zion 
travaileth, sons and daughters are born;” but Zion, 
like most mothers, goes reluctantly into the struggle 
and agony of the birth throes. 


THE CHURCH REVIVAL 

Under present conditions in this country, almost 
every community has a Church, a pastor, and reli¬ 
gious services with greater or less regularity. With 
no disparagement of other methods of evangelism and 
no opposition to accredited evangelists of any sincere 
and sane type, evangelism under the auspices of a 
regularly organized Church with the personal direc¬ 
tion of a regular pastor must always stand first. 

There are general laws which operate in all organi¬ 
zations whether for business or religion. In the 
various business firms and corporations of any com¬ 
munity, there must be an individual functioning in 
all the things that make business. There are times 
when all the business firms of a community may 
unite on a county fair, carnival, or Mardi Gras to 
draw crowds to the city and increase sales. They 
may join each other or the city at large in various 
methods of advertising and enlarging business, but 
no sensible merchant or tradesman depends on these 
things for the success of his business. Merchants 
here and there may now and then employ experts to 
put on sales or put out advertisements or in some 
way increase the sales by spasmodic movements, but 
reliable business men for the most part carry forward 
all the movements intended to revive, speed up, and 
enlarge trade by their own organization. This 
develops the initiative, increases the loyalty, en¬ 
larges ability, and in every way strengthens the cor¬ 
poration for regular routine work. 


90 


Methodist Evangelism 


There are times when all the Churches may very 
profitably join in a city-wide revival, there may be 
times when it may be wise for a pastor to call in an 
expert to inaugurate new methods and help to put 
over things impossible for the pastor; but no prosper¬ 
ous Church should depend on either the city-wide 
movement or the leadership of experts under normal 
conditions for its regular evangelistic work. 

The warfare on evangelists who have evidently 
been called and endowed of God for specific work is 
as foolish as the opposition to geniuses and specialists 
in law and surgery. Wise men recognize valuable 
work, condone natural faults, and give just credit to 
all labor, whether by the eloquent and persuasive 
Apollos, the theological and combative Paul, or the 
quiet and substantial Cephas. No less foolish is the 
unjust criticism of the pastor by the vocational 
evangelist. We are surely coming to the time when 
we will rejoice at any shell fired at the enemy, 
however awkward the gunman or peculiar the gun, if 
only the enemy is weakened. After all just credits 
are given everywhere, the facts, properly considered, 
will give the Church revival led by the pastor first 
place among evangelistic methods. The pastor is the 
acknowledged leader of his flock. The successful 
leadership and management of all his forces in a 
revival will in every way add to his strength and 
influence as a leader. The assumption of the respon¬ 
sibility will drive him closer to God, arouse the best 
that is in him, and under the spirit and power of 
the revival he will doubtless do the best preaching of 
his ministry and in this way greatly add to his 
effectiveness. His dependence upon his people will 


The Church Revival 


91 


rally them to the support of their pastor and thus in¬ 
crease their love and fidelity. They become com¬ 
rades in a common warfare, and all the blessed cords 
of comradeship will be strengthened. 

Men and women born unto God under one’s minis¬ 
try always feel a special attachment to and interest 
in him. This gives the pastor an added power to 
command for service and direct in service. Not only 
do the persons brought into the Church feel a special 
interest in the instrument of their conversion, but all 
the members of the family circle, great or small, share 
this feeling of love and gratitude. 

When the revival closes, none of the agencies that 
produced it withdraw. The same organization that 
produced the revival continues to function in the on¬ 
going of the Church. When the pastor is able to 
lead his own forces to victory it increases his courage, 
gives self-confidence, and encourages him to under¬ 
take other things for the success of his Church. It 
also becomes an incentive for the Church to join the 
pastor in other enterprises. One success promotes 
another. 

When a pastor is able to conduct a meeting that 
involves and blesses the whole community, he binds 
the community to himself by that much and gives 
himself a new and enlarged opportunity for doing 
good. A pastor who is physically able to do the 
preaching, who has a sufficient grip on his people to 
unite them in a revival effort, who has evangelistic 
gifts equal to the work to be done, who has created 
no friction in his Church, aroused no factions, and 
created no insurmountable difficulties, would certain¬ 
ly be unwise to invite an evangelist to hold his meeting. 


92 


Methodist Evangelism 


On the other hand, if the pastor realizes that from 
any consideration he cannot command his forces (and 
this is often the case with good men), that he has not 
evangelistic gifts to meet the occasion, that there are 
local and peculiar things that in all human appear¬ 
ances make it impractical for him to undertake 
to conduct his own meeting; if a good strong man 
with unusual evangelistic gifts could be secured to 
lead to victory and bring on a revival that would re¬ 
move difficulties and bless him and his Church, which 
has often happened, then the pastor would be unwise 
not to secure an evangelist, either a neighboring 
pastor or a vocational evangelist. It is a common 
experience for men to make an honest effort at a 
revival and utterly fail. This failure discourages 
both the pastor and the people—he has not the 
courage to brook another failure, and his people are 
unwilling to undertake another futile effort. It is the 
case of the horse who pulls at a stump until he cannot 
be whipped into another fruitless effort. 

There are hundreds of cases where a first-class 
man, the pastor of a good Church, realizing that 
he is a pastor-teacher, both in nature and preparation, 
and that the time has come to take his Church as 
the center of operation and make an effort to reach 
the community, has had sense enough to secure an 
evangelist and under his own planning and direction 
has accomplished large and desirable results. In a 
Church revival the local conditions should enable a 
sensible, unprejudiced pastor to determine whether 
or not he needs help and the kind he needs; if his 
ideal man cannot be found, the best available man 
may be accepted with good results. The leader 



The Church Revival 


93 


having been selected—whether evangelist, neighbor 
pastor, or the home pastor—the organization and 
preparation is of next vital importance. 

The choir is the first acute problem. If a paid 
quartet is used in the Church, they are to be elimi¬ 
nated, and this will be easy, as they cannot be 
depended upon to be present except on Sunday. In 
rare cases the leader of the choir is devout and spirit¬ 
ual and will take charge of the chorus to be selected 
by himself and the pastor. If the leader of the 
regular choir is not the suitable man, the finding and 
selection of the right man are important. People of 
unquestionable Christian character should be se¬ 
lected for the personnel of the choir; the leaders of 
the gospel in song should be consistent. There may 
be cases where the services of moral and orderly 
non-Church members may be selected with special 
reference to this as a means of bringing them to 
salvation during the meeting. Occasionally fine re¬ 
sults are obtained by judiciously working this plan. 
The pastor should be present at the close of the 
chorus practice and spend the closing moments in a 
brief prayer service to impress on the choir the im¬ 
portance of seeking the power of the Holy Spirit in 
song and to call attention to the fact that many may 
be convicted and converted during the song service if 
it be deeply spiritual. Each member of the chorus 
should be urged to select some unsaved person and 
give to the pastor the nameV a card with his or her 
own name. The cards should be in the hands of the 
pastor, that he may work with each one as far as 
possible. The chorus should have frequent meetings 
during the revival to get reports on what has been 


94 


Methodist Evangelism 


accomplished and to pray for the persons whose 
names have been furnished but known only to the 
pastor and the friends who turned them in. When a 
chorus is turned into a salvation band, both the 
demeanor and singing will be greatly improved. 

The Sunday school should next be thoroughly 
organized either by classes or groups of several classes 
in the same department. Special prayer services 
should be held ten days preceding and during the 
revival. At the prayer services prospects should be 
cautiously canvassed and reports of work from time 
to time should be made. 

The Epworth League and Woman’s Missionary 
Society should each form a group. Carefully picked 
men and women should constitute the personal 
workers’ committee. They should be commissioned 
by the pastor to supervise and do the personal work 
in the meeting with all the help they may be able to 
secure from all the groups. Let the size of the per¬ 
sonal workers’ committee be in proportion to the 
size of the congregation, and let each member of the 
committee select and put on a card, to save duplica¬ 
tion, the names of from three to ten workers whom 
he will direct and urge forward to do personal work. 
Each group should select certain objectives. One 
group should give attention to the teen age, to see 
that they are brought into the meeting and into the 
special group meetings for special prayer services; 
another group should make special effort for business 
young men and women; another should make special 
effort to interest only those with gray hair; and other 
specific groups which local conditions may suggest 
may be selected. The pastor should call to his aid a 


The Church Revival 95 

* . 

few men ana women with executive tact and have 
them help him in keeping the various groups at work. 
Meetings in homes, shops, and other places may be 
held with profit; personal letters, personal visits, 
telephone calls—all possible means should be used 
to reach the unsaved. Organization is essential, but 
may become cold and mechanical. The spirit of 
prayer and devotion must be made prominent. 

Personal evangelism has always been one of the 
chief characteristics of a great revival. From the 
beginning it has been the custom in the Methodist 
Church revival for the preacher, after his sermon and 
call for penitents, to urge the personal workers to 
go forth in the congregation, and in all great revival 
movements the chief success of the work has been 
through personal work. 

In a quarter of a century of revival work I never 
knew of a great revival without personal work. The 
message of the preacher and his testimony from the 
pulpit are of supreme importance, yet the right arm 
of power repository in personal and individual lay 
testimony and exhortation is decisive in the battle. 

If the pastor through his own effort or aided by 
another can command the devout members of the 
Church in the “upper room prayer and waiting” till 
the power comes and can then by proper organization 
and direction use personal work to the nth. power, 
fruit will be as certain as wheat under proper seeding 
and favorable season. Excepting prayer and power, 
the revival is most dependent on personal evangelism, 
and upon this feature of the Church revival I purpose¬ 
ly put large emphasis. 

On the memorable day of Pentecost, to which we 


96 


Methodist Evangelism 


often turn for precedent, we find that “they were all 
filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak, ” and 
that “every man heard them speak.” There was in 
this opening revival of the gospel dispensation, as in 
all succeeding great revivals, a very large amount of 
personal testimony and exhortation. When Peter, 
the preacher of the hour, stood up to explain the con¬ 
duct of the upper-room company in this marvelous 
demonstration, he quotes from Joel’s prophecy: “On 
my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out 
in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” 
The Holy Spirit doubtless came upon all the people, 
both men and women. The tongue of fire rested 
upon all the disciples of the upper room, and the men 
and the women under this power began to testify 
and exhort. Doubtless many of the thousands who 
were added to the Church were convinced by person¬ 
al testimony and exhortation. Throughout the New 
Testament we find much prominence given to the 
power and effectiveness of personal evangelism— 
the hand-to-hand fight, so to speak, in the great 
religious war. A fact rarely emphasized in the history 
of the Apostolic Church is the outstanding and al¬ 
most startling fact that the founding and growth of 
the early Church rested upon personal evangelism— 
the private testimony and exhortation of one man. 

Dwight L. Moody said: “When I get to heaven, 
after I have seen my Saviour, I will look up Barna¬ 
bas.” Why look up Barnabas before Paul, Peter, 
John, Isaiah, and the others whom Bible students 
have learned to love? A close study of Barnabas 
reveals Mr. Moody’s reason. Let it be remembered 
that Mr. Moody began his work as an evangelist by 


The Church Revival 


97 


personal evangelism and made that a feature of his 
teaching and of all his meetings. A few sentences 
here and there in the Acts and the Pauline Epistles 
carefully put together make a most suggestive 
biography of one of the first examples of personal 
evangelism. His method is instructive, the results 
inspiring. 

Barnabas was a native of the island of Cyprus, a 
Levite. At his death his body was taken to Cyprus, 
the old home, for interment; and, preserved through 
the ages, there is to-day an interesting monument 
over his grave indicating the unusual veneration in 
which he was held. Barnabas and his sister Mary 
lived in Jerusalem. She was evidently a woman of 
considerable prominence, and they were probably 
descendants of a worthy and wealthy family of Cy¬ 
prus. It is not entirely speculative to say that Mary 
owned a commodious house in Jerusalem, that she 
and Barnabas early became disciples of Jesus, and 
that her home was offered to Jesus and his disciples 
to be freely used at will. What is termed “the upper 
room” and the “room of the last supper” were most 
probably in this hospitable home. Mary, Barnabas, 
and John Mark, the son of Mary, were often hosts to 
Jesus and his disciples and often heard his words of 
wisdom. Barnabas was at the memorable prayer 
meeting when the place where they were assembled 
together was shaken. He was of that company who 
sold their possessions and dedicated all to the work of 
the early Church. The change of his name is very 
significant: “And Joses, who by the apostles was sur- 
named Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted The 
son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of 
7 


98 


Methodist Evangelism 


Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, 
and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” Unlike Ananias and 
Sapphira, he gave all. One trait of his character 
evidently became so significant that it won for him a 
special name—the apostles changed his name from 
Joses to Barnabas, Barnabas signifying the son of 
consolation and of exhortation. This compound 
word is as rich as it is tender and precious. The word 
broadly defined, laid open, and modernized signifies 
one who finds the down and discouraged one, con¬ 
soles, exhorts, and leads him forth to new life and 
hope. This is personal evangelism. 

After this charming introduction given in brief 
statements here and there in the New Testament we 
find Barnabas on the job. We get the reason Mr. 
Moody would have assigned for desiring to look upon 
his kindly face next after he had seen the face of 
Jesus. Barnabas was at the outset evidently one of 
the lay workers of the early Jerusalem Church, 
where he distinguished himself as the son of consola¬ 
tion and exhortation. His most significant work was 
with Saul of Tarsus. 

Saul of Tarsus, the cultured, influential student of 
Gamaliel, who doubtless was being prepared for the 
Jewish Sanhedrin, under the influence of the lawyers 
and doctors, arose as a most ardent and terrific perse¬ 
cutor of the Christian Church. Having seized and 
imprisoned and otherwise terrified the followers of 
Jesus in Jerusalem, he set out to Damascus to destroy 
the followers of Jesus there. On the highway, after 
having witnessed the martyrdom of Stephen, after 
having seen his face and heard his prayer and wit¬ 
nessed his triumphant death, riding alone a little in 



The Church Revival 


99 


advance of his followers as their leader and superior 
in rank, contemplating the wonderful thing he had 
seen, he was smitten of God and fell to the earth. 
He was led to Damascus, where he repented and 
accepted Christ as his Saviour. He retired to the 
wilderness of Arabia, where he spent three years with 
the Old Testament manuscripts, doubtless harmon¬ 
izing the prophecies with their fulfillment in Jesus. 
Here he wrought out his theology, thought out his 
experience, and determined upon his plan of life. 

He returned to Damascus full of faith and zeal and 
began in earnest to preach Jesus with great boldness 
to the people of Damascus. He aroused great opposi¬ 
tion; his persecutors arose to slay him. He was 
evidently advised by his more timid brethren, for his 
safety and theirs, to leave the town, and they let him 
down in a basket over the walls of the city and sent 
him forth alone in the night. Reproached, insulted, 
and persecuted by his enemies and urged by his 
friends and colaborers in the gospel to depart, he 
went out to pillow his head on the earth and fight 
alone during the dark hours of the night a battle 
which many a servant of God has fought since. At 
the dawning of the morning he determined to face 
toward Jerusalem to find sympathy and cooperation 
in the mother Church. The members of this Church 
at Jerusalem knew of his persecution of the saints, 
but did not know of his more recent experience. 
They were afraid of him; they declined to receive 
him. Here he met the sneering friends of the Sanhe¬ 
drin who repelled him from his old alliance; the 
friends of his new faith rejected him. In this extreme 
hour of his life he met a friend; in this hour of his 


100 


Methodist Evangelism 


loneliness and evident perplexity, Barnabas appeared 
on the scene. This son of consolation and exhorta¬ 
tion sought him, and the Scriptures teach us that he 
“took him, and brought him to the apostles, and 
declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the 
way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he 
had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of 
Jesus.” 

This speech of Barnabas dispelled their doubts and 
caused them to receive Paul: “And he was with them 
coming in and going out at Jerusalem. And he 
spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and dis¬ 
puted against the Grecians: but they went about to 
slay him. Which when the brethren knew, they 
brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth 
to Tarsus. Then had the churches rest throughout 
all Judea.” Paul’s gospel was evidently directed 
against the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, 
and here he stirred up the opposition and threats of 
execution. Their threats alarmed the Jerusalem 
Church, and the brethren, like the wicked Damascus 
brethren, decided to get rid of Paul, which they did 
by sending him out of the country. A committee 
was appointed to escort him to Caesarea, and they 
directed him to go home to Tarsus, his native city. 
The persecution at Damascus and the unfaithfulness 
of his brethren, the persecution at Jerusalem and the 
unfaithfulness of the brethren of the home Church 
and their advice to St. Paul to go to his own home— 
these were a challenge to his proud spirit and cultured 
mind and gentlemanly instincts which determined 
his course. He returned to his old home in Tarsus 
and evidently took up his former employment. 



The Church Revival 


101 


There is no record anywhere that he ever preached 
in Tarsus, no record that a Church was ever organized 
there through him, and there can be found nowhere 
among his epistles a single line to a Church at Tarsus. 
Nowhere in his writings is Tarsus mentioned. Thus 
dismissed and sent home by the mother Church at 
Jerusalem, Paul evidently decided to live a quiet, re¬ 
tired life. This life, the records show, continued 
through years with absolutely no definite record of 
any public ministry. But for Barnabas he would 
doubtless have lived and died in Tarsus in that same 
quiet seclusion in which he had lived since his de¬ 
parture from Jerusalem. There would have been no 
St. Paul as we know him; but in the strange provi¬ 
dence of God his work was not to end. 

The faithful son of consolation and of exhortation 
was still on the job to do personal and individual 
work to save a soul. The persecution of the Christian 
Church continued and became so severe that the 
disciples of Christ were scattered abroad. Like 
firebrands, however, wherever they stopped they 
started the fire anew. Many of them took refuge in 
the island of Cyprus, the old home of Barnabas. 
Here they kindled the fire and the Spirit-filled con¬ 
verts were sent as missionaries. The record shows 
that they went over to Antioch and started a revival. 
The news of this wonderful revival came back to 
Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Church, hearing that 
brethren from Cyprus were leading the meeting, sent 
Barnabas, the native of Cyprus, down to Antioch 
to get the facts concerning this wonderful revival. 
When Barnabas reached Antioch, he found the city 
aflame with gospel fire and marked the fact that the 


102 


Methodist Evangelism 


Greeks were being converted in large numbers. The 
boldness of the preachers, the wonderful success of 
the gospel, and the marvelous conversion of the 
Greeks caused him to think of Paul and long for his 
presence. This son of consolatuion and exhortation 
determined to go and look up Paul: “Then departed 
Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Paul: and when he 
had found him, he brought him unto Antioch.” The 
words “seek,” “found,” and “brought” are very 
significant. 

Paul had retired, and it took an effort to bring him 
to Antioch, but Barnabas “sought” and “found” 
him and “brought” him into the revival of Antioch. 
Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch; “a whole 
year they assembled themselves with the church,” 
and “in these days came prophets from Jerusalem 
unto Antioch” and told of the famine and dire want 
of the people of Judea. Here Barnabas has another 
opportunity to encourage and console and reinstate. 
The brethren decided to raise funds for the relief of 
the people and “sent it to the elders by the hands of 
Barnabas and Saul.” Barnabas had come over from 
Jerusalem as a messenger from the Jerusalem Church. 
He would, of course, be the logical one to carry this 
offering back to his brethren, and he selects Paul as 
his companion. Paul and Barnabas, the old pair, 
coming with help in such a time of need, would give 
Paul a new hold on the Jerusalem Church. This was 
evidently the fine planning of Barnabas to fully re¬ 
instate Paul. They stopped doubtless as usual in 
the home of Mary, and on their return brought the 
son of Mary, John Mark, whom Barnabas was anx¬ 
ious to bring into the work of the ministry. On 


The Church Revival 


103 


their return to Antioch, the Church entered upon a 
season of prayer for the spread of the gospel. 
Barnabas had Paul and John Mark in these prayer 
meetings. “The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Bar¬ 
nabas and Saul,” and “they sent them away as mis¬ 
sionaries.” They took John Mark with them (here 
Barnabas had another personal case) and started for 
Cyprus, the old home of Barnabas. When they 
reached Perga, John Mark found the battle too fierce 
and decided to return to the comfortable home and 
more quiet Church at Jerusalem. When news 
reached the Jerusalem Church that the Gentiles 
were being converted, the question of circumcision 
arose. Barnabas and Saul went up to Jerusalem to 
confer with them. 

After another series of great services at Antioch, 
Paul and Barnabas decided upon another missionary 
tour. Barnabas had “consoled and exhorted” John 
Mark and had gotten him back into the company for 
another tour, but “Paul thought it not good to take 
him with them, who departed from them from 
Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.” 
“The contention was so sharp between them, that 
they parted asunder one from the other: and so 
Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus,” and 
Paul took Silas and departed on his next missionary 
tour. 

PauPs wonderful experience in Antioch and his 
first missionary tour settled all questions for him and 
his future mission. Barnabas knew Paul could go it 
alone, but John Mark was now the limping one. 
This son of “consolation and exhortation” knew 
where his duty lay; and with a promise to John Mark 


104 


Methodist Evangelism 


of a visit back to the old home in Cyprus, he took 
John Mark and thus saved both him and Paul. If 
there had been no Barnabas, there would have been 
no St. Paul, no missionary journeys by Paul, no 
Churches established by Paul. If there had been no 
Barnabas, there would have been no John Mark, no 
Gospel according to Mark. 

Of course it may be said, and truthfully so, that 
God could have raised up another son of consolation 
who might have saved Paul and John Mark, as it 
seems clear that God had marked Paul for his mes¬ 
sage to the Gentiles; but as matters really stand, 
everything depended on this son of consolation. 
How the Church needs men and women to encourage, 
to exhort, to console, to comfort, and to reestablish 
the limping ones till by rich experience they become 
giants in God’s work! How we need men of the Bar¬ 
nabas type to seek, find, and bring men into the 
Antioch revival! No wonder Mr. Moody desired to 
see Barnabas. 

Another significant example in the Apostolic 
Church was Andrew, the modest, quiet, watching- 
for-a-chance personal worker. He comes to the front 
only three times, every time taking some one to 
Jesus. “He first findeth his own brother Simon, and 
saith unto him, We have found the Messiah, which 
is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him 
to Jesus.” It was a wonderful day when Andrew 
took his brother to Jesus. Many a humble worker 
has led to Jesus him who was able to do greater 
things than were possible to the instrument in his 
salvation. The next time Andrew appears he is 
taking to Jesus the lad with the fishes and loaves; 


The Church Revival 


105 


the next time he conducts the Greeks to Jesus. What 
were the results? Andrew, the almost unknown 
disciple, led his brother, Peter, to Christ, and Peter 
became the preacher on the day of Pentecost and the 
heroic leader of the Apostolic Church. He led the 
lad to Jesus, and the five thousand were fed. He led 
the three Greeks to Jesus, and it is quite probable 
that they became important factors in holding and 
extending the Greek membership of the Christian 
Church. 

Philip was called from a great revival toward the 
desert, and in the hand-to-hand, heart-to-heart con¬ 
flict, he destroyed the prejudice, broke down the 
barriers, and led to Christ the Ethiopian treasurer. 
In the language of the Scriptures, “Then Philip 
opened his mouth, and began at the same Scripture, 
and preached unto him Jesus.” And the eunuch 
exclaimed in his ecstasy of faith, “I believe that 
Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” What this great 
man accomplished in his country among his people 
cannot be fully stated. God’s specific interference 
in this case and the great prominence of the man 
would strongly indicate that he was the hope to bring 
to fulfillment these profoundly interesting and signifi¬ 
cant prophesies: “Princes shall come out of Egypt; 
Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.” 
(Ps. lxviii. 31.) “Thus saith the Lord, The labor of 
Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the 
Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, 
and they shall be thine.” (Isa. xlv. 14.) 

Jesus at the well opened the eyes of the Samaritan 
woman, and she in turn brought the whole town 
to his feet. What the results of this city-wide move- 


106 Methodist Evangelism 

ment meant to the Church would be an interesting 
part of history. 

Gen. William Booth, the leader of the Salvation 
Army, attributes his entrance upon his unique and 
wonderful career to Will Samson, who approached him 
after a serious illness and invited him to join in the 
mission work in the slum part of the town. To this 
influence General Booth attributes his after career 
and acknowledges this young man as the one who 
introduced him to his great work of salvation among 
the poor and the needy. 

John Wesley in his autobiography attributes his 
awakening and his vision of the higher life to one or 
two individuals whose personal testimony and indi¬ 
vidual exhortation led him forth into the experience 
which made him the founder of a great Church. 

In this age our thoughts are being directed in 
many ways to the power of personal evangelism— 
the Sunday school teacher and the personal appeal 
to the pupil; the member of the Brotherhood Class 
and the personal appeal to his brother; the revival 
campaign and the personal workers’ band through 
whose influence hundreds have been led to Christ. 
Added to this, there has been tried out with fine 
results a city-wide campaign of “one-to-win-one” 
through which individuals have enlarged their own 
personal experience and been enabled to accomplish 
work of which they had not dreamed they were 
capable. With all the methods of evangelism none 
would be of greater power in the Church than a 
universal movement of personal evangelism. 

In the Church revival personal evangelism is the 
one big thing to be stressed and worked. The success 


The Church Revival 


107 


of all great revivals will bear testimony to this 
statement. As the “acid test" take any congre¬ 
gation of Church folk, ask each to give the person, 
fact, or thing that led him or her to Christ, and ninety 
per cent will point to some individual other than the 
preacher. The big, live problem for the modern 
pastor is personal evangelism. 


VI 


SOUTHERN METHODISM’S GREATEST 

EVANGELIST 

In 1871, in Cartersville, Ga., Capt. John Jones, 
a Christian lawyer, lay on his deathbed. His sick 
room was turned into a sacred chapel of ministry to 
his friends and fellow townsmen. Such sentences as 
these lingered in the minds of his neighbors after his 
departure: “This home that God has given me is 
filled with the glory of the Lord. I am physically 
very weak, but spiritually I am strong. When 
every other prop fails me, then Jesus Christ stands 
firm.’’ As the end drew near, he called his family one 
by one and gave his parting words. When he came 
to his oldest son, Sam, whose dissipation had greatly 
troubled him, he said: “My poor, wicked, wayward, 
reckless boy, you have broken the heart of your sweet 
wife and brought me down in sorrow to my grave. 
Promise me, my boy, to meet me in heaven.” Under 
the deepest emotion the son said: “Father, I’ll make 
the promise; I’ll quit—I’ll quit—I’ll quit!” 

The Sabbath after his father’s death he spent with 
his old grandfather, Rev. Samuel G. Jones, a Meth¬ 
odist circuit rider. Sabbath morning his grandfather 
preached at a little wooden church called “Moore’s 
Chapel.” At the close of the sermon the grandfather, 
knowing that his grandson was under deep convic¬ 
tion, gave an opportunity for those who desired the 
prayers of^the^ congregation to come forward, and 

Hts grandson accepted this proposition. A few 
(108) 


Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist 109 

Sabbaths later the grandfather was conducting a 
revival meeting at Felton’s Chapel, near Carters- 
ville, and was delighted beyond measure at the close 
of this service to have his grandson, who had been 
under deep conviction since the former meeting, 
come forward and make a full surrender of himself 
to God and join the Church. 

The conversion of Sam Jones, who was at the 
time a drayman in the town of Cartersville, bright, 
witty, jocular, and withal a patron of the saloon and 
notorious among his comrades for his recklessness and 
dissipation, created a sensation in the community. 
His grandfather called on him the following Sabbath 
to preach, and the acceptation of this urgent invita¬ 
tion opened a most marvelous ministerial career. 
Of his first sermon he said: “I do not remember 
anything I said except 'God is good’ and 'I am 
happy.” Many of his friends and companions came 
to the altar at the close of his sermon, and his grand¬ 
father, laying his hand on his shoulder, said: “This 
is God’s seal to your call to the ministry.” 

That fall Mr. Jones joined the North Georgia 
Conference in Atlanta and was sent to Van Wert 
Circuit. For several years he continued as a travel¬ 
ing circuit rider. From the beginning of his ministry 
he showed both a fondness for and an aptitude in 
conducting revival meetings. Soon his services were 
in demand among his neighboring circuit riders. 
Later, feeling the call to devote himself in a larger 
way to the evangelistic work, he took the agency of 
the Decatur Orphans’ Home, and his evangelistic 
career thus began. During his pastorate he had held 
very remarkable meetings at Barnesville, Lagrange, 


110 


Methodist Evangelism 


West Point, and other places. The agency of the 
Orphans’ Home giving him opportunity to do revival 
work, he soon demonstrated a very unusual gift. 
He held meetings in many of the larger towns and 
in the city of Atlanta, the success of which awakened 
large interest. He was invited to Memphis, Tenn., 
where his first great meeting outside of his native 
State was conducted. This meeting was of such 
character as to call the attention of the whole South 
to this weird, unique, and absolutely original prophet 
of God. He was next invited to Nashville, where a 
great tent was provided, and there he began to 
preach in a large tent and inaugurated the taber¬ 
nacle meetings which have constituted such an im¬ 
portant part in modern evangelism. This meeting at 
Nashville attracted the attention not only of the 
South but of the entire nation. His preaching was 
so unusual, his methods so new, and the results so 
marvelous that the daily press gave columns in 
description of the meetings and in reports of his 
queer, humorous, and epigrammatic method of weav¬ 
ing human philosophy with gospel truth. Quotations 
were freely made through the press of the nation, and 
Sam Jones became a national figure of queer and 
quizzical interest. He became the enigma of the 
press, the problem of the clergy, and the subject of 
general comment in home, in store, in shop, in 
hotel lobbies, and in street groups throughout the 
country. 

Indisputable records will show that this unique 
genius of the American pulpit and platform spoke to 
more people in a given time, moved more men and 
women to a better life, added more people to the 



Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist 111 

Churches, led more men into the ministry, and added 
greater impetus to the public sentiment that finally 
destroyed the rum traffic in the United States than 
any other American Methodist preacher, living or 
dead. It is therefore worth while to study the schools 
in which such unusual capacities were developed for 
such eminent uses. What was the secret of power? 
is a question often propounded. He was powerful 
by the natural and spiritual laws that generate power. 
On the human side, blood, education, environment, 
and personal experience conspire to make supreme 
personality. 

There is no secret of power. When one is dis¬ 
covered on any conspicuous eminence, he reached 
that eminence in one of three ways—he climbed, 
he rode, or he flew. He did not happen there. There 
are laws of walking, climbing, and flying. The oft- 
quoted proverb, “Some men are born great, some 
men achieve greatness, and others have greatness 
thrust upon them,” must be accepted relatively. 
Neither blood nor personal effort nor what is termed 
good fortune can alone create greatness. The 
choicest blood, the finest educational facilities, the 
best equipment, and the most fortunate oppor¬ 
tunities, all failed in the despicable and contemptible 
traitor who conspired in infamy, wrought in shame, 
and died in disgrace—and the spirit of every Ameri¬ 
can recoils in pity, regret, and revolt at the name of 
Aaron Burr, whose life is conspicuous in the annals 
of all history. 

Sam Jones was really and naturally great by the 
laws under which men achieve greatness. He was 
well born. There is no escape from blood. It is as 



Methodist Evangelism 


.112 

constant and transmittible in folks as in brutes. The 
performance of men and brutes roots in ancestry and 
blossoms in blood. The blood that coursed his veins 
was characterized by piety, genius, humor, and 
picturesque eccentricity. His father was a member 
of a large and notably Christian family. Four of his 
father's brothers were licensed preachers. His 
grandfather was a preacher, and his father often ex¬ 
pressed to his friends the belief that God had called 
him to preach. His grandmother was one of the old- 
fashioned type of Methodist mothers in Israel known 
and honored in the community for her conspicuous 
piety. She was wonderfully gifted in prayer, having 
a definite place and set time for her devotions. More 
than thirty times she had read the Bible through. 
Often in the house of God, when the Spirit of the Lord 
would come upon her, she would give vent to her 
ecstatic joy by shouting in the old-fashioned way, 
walking up and down the aisles of the church, clap¬ 
ping her hands, and exulting and praising God. Her 
father, Robert L. Edwards, a pioneer preacher of 
Georgia who carried the piety and eccentricities of 
the family, was a conspicuous character in his Con¬ 
ference. The Conference minutes say of him: “As a 
preacher of the gospel he was one of the most re¬ 
markable men that ever labored in the Southern 
States.” At a camp meeting when a brother minister 
was delivering an ornamental and indefinite kind of 
sermon, he stepped to the platform, laid his hand on 
the preacher’s shoulder, and said: “Brother, these 
people are sinners, sir, big sinners, on their way to 
death. If you won’t tell them where they are going, sit 
down and let me tell them.” The brother sat down, 



Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist 113 

Mr. Edwards made an earnest exhortation, and the 
sinners came in crowds to the altar, the people were 
greatly moved, and the meeting lasted all night. 
The rising sun the following morning smiled on the 
ecstatic congregation rejoicing with the scores of 
new converts. 

Those who knew Mr. Edwards and Mr. Jones saw 
the eccentricities of the grandfather in large measure 
in his grandson. The religious character of the 
family is shown in a record given of an anniversary 
dinner at the grandfather’s home at which the grand¬ 
father spoke as follows: “There are fifty-two mem¬ 
bers of our family. Twenty-two have crossed over, 
sixteen of whom were infants, while the other six 
were Christians and died happy. There are thirty 
left, and all but one are in the Church and on the 
straight and narrow path that leads to heaven.” 
The one referred to was Joseph Jones, who afterwards 
became a minister and successful evangelist. This 
is an unusual family record. Out of such circum¬ 
stances we may expect unusual and remarkable men. 

The spirit of the family blood was manifested in 
the Civil War. The father of Sam Jones was a cour¬ 
ageous and heroic captain of a Georgia regiment in 
which he had five brothers—all officers, one a 
chaplain. Six brothers in one regiment, all officers, 
is significant evidence of the heroism manifested 
throughout the career of Sam Jones. 

In the cross fires between Sam Jones and the daily 
press throughout the country occasionally an editor 
would say that Sam Jones should not criticize the 
daily press, because the newspapers had made him, 
and Mr. Jones asked them why they did not make 
8 



114 


Methodist Evangelism 


another. One of the frankest replied: “We are out 
of dirt.” Men of this character are not the product 
of praise or slander, of press or tongue—they are 
God made. When God makes a great man, he moves 
deliberately through the years and the generations. 
Physical gifts reckoned in blood are undeniable 
assets. Many a man has been handicapped by a 
long line of vicious inheritance. 

Sam Jones had a personality of unusual charm and 
attractiveness. His face and manner were comple¬ 
ments of his character. The heavy, dark eyelashes 
shading his large jet-black eyes; the long, heavy, 
dark mustache that fell in a mischievous curl at the 
corners of his forceful mouth; his bold cheek and 
Roman nose—all these constituted a face whose 
manliness commanded. His large, piercing black 
eye seemed to grip his audience in the first glance. I 
have never seen eyes that held such psychic reserve 
in their depths or gave out with such force the emo¬ 
tions of the soul. Betimes kindness beamed, humor 
sparkled, sarcasm pierced, and belligerence blazed 
from his marvelous eyes. His voice was a constant 

( marvel. It was clear, articulate, and musical in all 
tones. In an ordinary conversational tone he could 
be clearly heard and distinctly understood by audi¬ 
ences of three or four thousand people. Added to his 
manly face, his masterful eye, and his wonderful 
voice, there was a humanness vibrant in every sen¬ 
tence. His melodious voice carried the sympathy 
that melted, the invective that withered, and the 
pleading that moved the hardest sinful hearts with 
an uncoventional, nonclerical and natural non- 
• chalance in every movement. Much of the hero wor- 



Southern Methodism 1 s Greatest Evangelist 115 

ship of the great crowds about him was attributable 
to the unique innovation and nonconformity with the 
clerical manner and custom of the age. When he 
stepped into the pulpit or on the platform with the 
manner and dress of a layman, with a nonconformity 
and utter disregard for all clerical formalities, with 
apparent recklessness both of appearance and lan¬ 
guage, he was, as before stated, so out of the ordinary 
that he was classed as a clerical curiosity, and the 
daily press featured him. Preachers and people 
came from long distances—some with morbid curios¬ 
ity, others with serious purpose—to see and study 
this unique innovation in the ranks of the clergy. 
Those who heard him once or twice in his humorous 
and irregular talks in which his audiences were 
thrown into convulsive laughter were often his un¬ 
favorable critics; but I never knew a minister or lay¬ 
man of genuine or undoubted piety who listened to 
him thoughtfully through a whole series of meetings 
who did not regard him as a great and unusual preach¬ 
er ordained of God and appointed for a great work. 
Many of his critics were bigoted ecclesiastics who re¬ 
garded formalities and phylacteries of more value 
than the salvation of sinners, or wicked men whose 
sins he unmercifully flayed. 

His scholastic education was not extensive, but of 
that sort which produces the chief end of education— 
a mind trained to orderly thinking. He fell under the 
tutelage of Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Felton, teachers of 
unusual personality and equipment, who gave him 
his training in English through grammar and rhetoric; 
in mathematics through higher arithmetic and higher 
algebra; in Latin through Caesar; in Greek through ^ 




116 


Methodist Evangelism 



the first lessons. This thorough high school course 
was supplemented by a law course which he pursued 
to the satisfaction of the court in which he received 
his license to practice law. In early life he was fond 
of reading and read substantial literature. He was 
especially fond of Burns. In his early ministry he 
read the Bible as he read the law course—to master 
it book by book. The ministers who heard him were 
constantly surprised at his comprehensive knowledge 
of the “Book of books.” He was not in the highest 
sense a scholar, but he had the same kind and extent 
of scholastic education that was acquired by many 
of the most renowned lawyers, judges, preachers, and 
statesmen of the South who supplemented their 
limited pedagogic curriculum by extensive reading 
and profound thinking. 

With this endowment of blood and scholastic 
preparation, he had experiences of the most varied 
and instructive sort. Great preachers cannot be 
made by pedagogic curricula. They are developed 
amid severe and favorable circumstances, the storms 
and stresses of life. Colleges, universities, and 
theological seminaries are able to produce scholars, 
debaters, exegetes, and homilists, but preachers come 
from the school of experience which acquaints men 
with the varied heart throbs generated in the toil, 
hardship, sacrifice, and suffering of themselves and 
their fellows. The many and varied experiences 
through which Mr. Jones went conspired to produce 
a man who not only knew the facts and things of life, 
but knew his fellow man and every experience 
through which he goes as well as every emotion of the 
soul. 



Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist 117 


His mother died in his early childhood, his father 
joined his fellow countrymen in the march to the 
Civil War, and the lad was left an orphan in the 
training of his good old “ grandfather and grand¬ 
mother. ” This school of pathetic vicissitudes wrought 
in him that deep sympathy for helpless childhood 
that led him to the superintendency of the Orphans’ 
Home. 

Circumstances threw him on a farm in Kentucky. 
The country toils and sports and the touch of nature 
and nature’s folk gave him the vast store of practical 
illustrations which so endeared him to the country 
people who flocked to his ministry. A nature touch 
like this always awakens human interest: “In the 
mountains of Kentucky during the winter we hunted 
the rabbits in the deep snow. Running across the 
tracks, we would take the back track until we found 
where he had laid down. If the bed was warm, we 
knew that he was near by; then we would yelp and 
take the forward track and catch him. Brethren, 
the devil is on your track; if you fall down, don’t lie 
there long enough to warm the ground. ,, 

At the close of the war his father returned, joined 
the wife of his second marriage, and reestablished 
the home and his legal profession. On the advice of 
his father Mr. Jones took up the study of law. This 
brought him in contact with lawyers, courts, juries, 
and criminals, out of which experience came another 
class of knowledge and illustrations. When he was 
admitted to the bar he married the girl on whose 
cheeks the winter fires in the old Kentucky country 
home painted the roses that won his heart; but the 
happy marriage was doomed to the shadows which 


118 


Methodist Evangelism 


dissipation and poverty bring. He soon found that 
the devastated and impoverished Southland had 
little employment for the lawyer. He was forced to do 
manual labor. He moved into a cheap one-room 
house and began in a heroic way the struggle with 
toil and poverty of the most cruel and pressing sort. 

His first job was as a miner in one of the ore banks 
near Cartersville. He was then on the night shift, 
beginning at five o’clock and working until midnight. 
He took his scanty lunch, left his poverty-stricken 
home, and took his place in the mines with the 
humblest whites and negroes. From this school he 
gained the lessons of real and strenuous life which 
not only brought him in sympathy with the laboring 
classes of the world, but gave him a storage of humor¬ 
ous, pathetic, and interesting illustrations which 
could have been gained in no school except that of 
< actual experience. In a mining section, when the 
work was going hard and his sermons apparently 
ineffective, he cried: “Brethren, I am digging in 
vain, getting nowhere and dulling the pick. Let’s 
get down and pray and ask God to give us a blast.” 

His next job was running a stationary engine. 
This experience made him akin to engineers, 
machinists, and railroad men. He almost wor- 
, shiped the locomotive engine, and no man was ever 
loved by mechanics and railroad men, firemen and 
engineers, with a greater devotion than was he. 
When his remains were to be taken to Atlanta for 
interment, one of the old engineers who knew him and 
loved him asked the privilege of using his engine. 
He decorated it in the most pathetic way and placed 
a portrait of Sam Jones over the headlight of his 







Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist 119 


engine. As he entered the Atlanta yards he brought 
the whistle of his engine to a most weird and pathetic 
wail. He had notified his comrades of the signal, and 
every engineer on every engine on all the tracks in the 
city of Atlanta joined in the sad moaning with the 
whistles of their engines, and as the special train 
pulled through the yards every railroad man stood 
with cap off and head bowed. No one ever heard Sam 
Jones preach who did not marvel at his interesting 
and graphic pictures connected with the railroad 
and locomotive engines. “My brethren, the differ¬ 
ence between a pile of scrap iron and a locomotive 
engine is that one is organized and the other isn’t. 
If we expect to do anything in this meeting, we must 
organize our forces and see that every part of the 
great machine functions.” 

When two or three members of a fruitless Church 
under one of his sermons began exultantly to shout 
and to interrupt and disturb the meetings so that 
nothing practical could be done toward saving sin¬ 
ners, he said: “There is a little steamboat on the 
Coosa River that has a very small engine and a very 
large whistle. When the whistle blows, the boat 
stops. They can’t run and blow at the same time. 
That reminds me of the Methodist Church we can t 
do both, so we are spending our time blowing.” 

His next job was that of drayman. Here he met 
all classes and conditions of humanity. The saloons 
were then open on every street corner. The warm 
fires and the jolly crowd led him often, day and night, 
to these dangerous places, which finally became his 
downfall. In this school he got all the lessons of sin, 

suffering, and sorrow. 




120 


Methodist Evangelism 


Passing from a wayward, drinking drayman’s life 
into the Church and the ministry, he entered the next 
great school where so many thousand wonderful 
gospel preachers have been produced—the school of 
experience of the country circuit rider. Eight years 
in this valuable experience gave him some of the 
richest lessons of life. Early in his career as a circuit 
preacher, he providentially fell in the district of the 
Rev. Simon Peter Richardson as presiding elder. He 
was one of the rugged, picturesque, and eccentric 
preachers in the North Georgia Conference—bold, 
humorous, graphic, and entirely unconventional. He 
set the style for this young circuit rider’s preaching. 
Sam Jones said of his clerical model: “Until I heard 
Simon Peter Richardson preach I thought the 
pulpit was a prison in which a preacher could go so 
far to the right and so far to the left; but he taught 
me that the pulpit is the throne and the preacher a 
king, and he can go anywhere God leads regardless 
of the manners, customs, or opinions of the people. 
From this distinguished model Mr. Jones learned 
that as a preacher he could be natural in the use of 
inherited wit, humor, and picturesque illustration. 

Those who heard him constantly were bewildered 
in the fact that he seemed to present three distinct 
personalities in a course of sermons. These person¬ 
alities appeared in his varied styles of preaching. 
He was either conversational, hortatory, or forensic, 
and distinctly so. Before certain audiences he 
adopted one style and before other audiences and 
under different circumstances a totally different 
style. Usually in his morning service he used the 
conversational style. He was in no sense an actor, 






Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist 121 

mimic, or performer on the platform. He made no 
grimaces and struck no attitudes, poses, or postures 
for effect. His gestures were few except in his heroic, 
hortatory, and forensic addresses. In his conversa¬ 
tional style he stood still with thumb hung in his 
vest or pants pocket or hand or arm resting upon 
the book board or table. These sermons were called 
his rambling talks in which he used humor and 
pathos, illustrations of promiscuous type, blunt 
epigrams, homely philosophy, and snatches of his 
own personal experience gathered in the everyday 
school of life. Betimes he was polished and rough, 
classic and boorish, tender and scathing, pathetic 
and humorous, serious and jocular, sympathtic and 
caustic. He was so rough occasionally that even his 
best friends would have eliminated or modified some 
of his expressions. At other times he was so ornate 
and classic that the most cultured of his audience 
were surprised and charmed. At times he was the 
evangel of God carrying the blazing torch of the 
gospel; at others he was a humorous lecturer enter¬ 
taining his audience with facts and philosophy of 
everyday life. 

Charles Dickens was refined and cultured, yet he 
gave to the world the most graphic pictures of Lon¬ 
don’s rough characters. He put into the mouths of 
his characters the language of the London slums. His 
most popular novel is so full of slang that it is 
predicted that it will ultimately be unintelligible. 
Sam Jones, no less refined and delicate in mind and 
heart, the congenial and delightful companion of 
cultured men and women, a welcome guest in the 
most affluent and refined homes of the country, often 



122 


Methodist Evangelism 


used on the platform the vernacular and slang of the 
street. Dickens was a dramatist in dialogue, Sam 
Jones a dramatist in monologue. He was as true to 
nature as Dickens and no less refined in mind and 
heart. He was most unusual in the rugged, terse, 
epigrammatic way of putting homely philosophy, 
Bible doctrines, and ethical living, uncovering hy¬ 
pocrisy, exposing sins, and unfrocking shams. 

His forte was in topical preaching. Occasionally 
he would take a chapter and give an exposition. In 
this he was lucid, strong, and often surprising to the 
clergy. His evangelistic strength, however, lay in 
hammering in a proverb. “One sinner destroyeth 
much good,” “Be sure your sin will find you out,” 
“Excape for thy life,” and similar topics were the 
centers around which he moved in the delivery of his 
most effective sermons. 

In the text, “One sinner destroyeth much good,” 
he would take up one type of sinner after another 
and, stripping every vestment from each sin, hold it 
up so that it would drip with slime and disgust with 
stench. He would turn the searchlight of God’s law 
on it until its hideous rebellion against love and good¬ 
ness would make one quake. Then he would send the 
sinner, reeking with sin, on his horrible mission of 
destroying good. He would take the sins of the 
father, one by one, and turn them loose in the home, 
like smallpox and yellow fever germs or like a 
venomous serpent, to put the virus of death in the 
innocent children; he would paint this corrupter and 
despoiler of his own helpless seed until the father 
would cringe like a convict in chains and the audi¬ 
ence would feel like every such father should be 




Southern Methodism 1 s Greatest Evangelist 123 

arrested and confined like the villain who would put 
dynamite under a kindergarten. 

He would not, like Thackeray, accuse, arrest, con-—7 
vict, jail, and leave the criminal; but, like the Master, ( 
he would extend the hand of mercy and open the>3 
door of love and hope. As a further stimulus to the 
hopeless, he would paint the hideous condition of a 
Hadley or a McAuley in his sinful and debauched 
life, bring him into the presence of the loving, for¬ 
giving, and cleansing Saviour—then, washed and 
forgiven, he would send him on his Christlike mission 
of saving other sinners, destroying sin, and bringing- 
cheer and gladness to desolate hearts and homes, 
until every sinner in his audience, disgusted with 
the slimy robes of his own sins and charmed with the 
exalted possibility of doing good, would rush to the 
same fountain for cleansing. Bishop Charles B. 
Galloway, in his memorial address, says: 

If he sometimes used the muck rake, it was not simply to 
expose the rottenness of society and the wickedness of the 
world, but that the healing light of the truth might shine upon 
and cure it. He uncovered sin that it might be destroyed. 

He rent the robe of hypocrisy that its ghastly deformity might 
cease to deceive. But for every penitent he had a mantle of 
charity, and for every home-coming prodigal a joyous wel¬ 
come. 

He was free from the weaknesses and vices of narrow na¬ 
tures. His great soul was too generous for jealousy and too 
broad for bigotry. Envy found no hiding place in his brother¬ 
ly and sunny heart. He coveted no man’s position or posses¬ 
sions, and envied no human being his fame or his fortune. 

It never occurred to him that any rival stood in the way of his 
attainments or achievements. No Mordecai sat in the gate¬ 
way of his noble soul. He rejoiced that the world is wide, with 
an inviting field for every honest toiler, and ample reward 


124 


Methodist Evangelism 


for every faithful workman; that there is a chaplet for every 
heroic brow and a throne for every really royal soul. While 
deeply appreciative of his large place in the nation’s esteem— 
pardonably proud of his wonderful and long-sustained popu¬ 
larity—he generously rejoiced in the honors and success of 
every worthy man. I never heard him speak a disparaging 
word of any mortal who had high aims and a serious purpose. 
His generous hand would have withered had he attemped to 
pluck a star from another’s crown. Such magnanimity is one 
of the final tests of true greatness. 

He had a masterful mind, a prodigious memory, 
and a most unusual facility for keeping his thought 
lucid and orderly. In the sixteen years of our asso¬ 
ciation I never saw him with pen or pencil, note, 
scrap, or scrip in the preparation or delivery of a 
sermon. I never saw him the least puzzled, embar¬ 
rassed, or confused before any character of audience, 
and I have seen him before every kind of audience 
that America furnishes, from the four hundred 
clergymen and professors of Boston, the packed 
theaters, auditoriums, and rostra of the whole coun¬ 
try, down to the crude wooden tabernacle of the 
South filled with promiscuous colored people. He 
was everywhere the same cool, deliberate, natural, and 
unabashed master of the situation. On his fiftieth 
anniversary, the Atlanta Journal asked Mr. Jones 
to give his opinion of himself as a preacher. Among 
other things he said: 

Like Saul of Tarsus, I was turned right about, and now for 
thirty-four years I have been obedient to the heavenly call. I 
spent eight years of my life as a pastor upon different cir¬ 
cuits in the North Georgia Conference. Then I took the agen¬ 
cy of the Orphans’ Home, and fed and clothed and cared for 
the orphan children during my evangelistic work for more 
than twelve years. I have been out of the pastorate for 


Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist 125 

seventeen years, and my life has been given almost wholly to 
evangelistic work, covering almost every State in the Union 
and most of the principal cities and towns. I do not affirm 
with absolute correctness, but I estimate that I have seen 
five hundred thousand people turned from the error of their 
ways into a better life under my ministry. I have preached, 
perhaps, to more than a million people a year for the past 
twenty-five years. I have known as many as twenty-seven 
hundred people to join the Churches in a series of meetings, 
and frequently as many as a thousand. I have been but a 
humble instrument in the hands of God in this work. His has 
been the power, so to him shall be the glory. Reckoning out¬ 
side of the grace and power of God, I do not understand my 
work. But God tells us that with him all things are possible, 
and that he has chosen the weak things of this world to con¬ 
found the wise, and that this treasure is in earthen vessels that 
the excellency of the power may be of God and not of man. 

In 1872 I began my ministerial life as pastor. From the 
first I wanted to get the juice out of a text. How will I get 
the juice out of my text? was the supreme question. And the 
juice is all I ever wanted out of the text. Others may deal in 
bones and hoofs and horns, and that which is dry and tasteless, 
but I always wanted the juice and always wanted to give 
juice to others. I never attended a theological “cemetery.” 
Till this blessed day I know nothing of systematic theology as 
a science. I never studied “hermiletics” or “exegetics” or 
“polemics.” I never studied nor taught oratory or rhetoric. 
I have always believed that there were three essentials to an 
effective speaker; first, clearness; second, concentration; 
third, directness. The average speaker cannot be clear unless 
he bathes the subject in a flood of light by illustration. Let 
an audience see what you are talking about. Second, concen¬ 
tration. Put a whole lead mine into one bullet. Then, thirdly, 
directness; aim where you want to hit, and something will be 
lying dead around in that neck of the woods. 

I have made the Word of God the limit and boundary line 
of truth. I have considered myself free to think within that 
boundary line. I have never been hampered by rule or 
schools. God's Word has been the circle and God himself the 
orbit around which my mind has moved. I have been called a 



126 


Methodist Evangelism 


crank, mountebank, clown, fanatic, and fool; and I have 
gathered all these titles up and am willing to wear them as 
honors and cast them down at my Saviour’s feet at last, 
emblems of my loyalty to him and my fidelity to my convic¬ 
tion. Men have criticized me everywhere. If I had preached 
as the schools teach and systematic theology directs, and logic 
and grammar demand, I would have been criticized as other 
men, preached to as few people as other men, and moved in as 
small circles as other men. A thousand times I have preferred 
mental training to mental culture. The preacher who reads 
and studies all the week and stands on the Sabbath day and 
vomits intellectually that which he has taken in during the 
week, may please the fancy, but will never move the con¬ 
science of an audience. It is in the mental world as it is in the 
world of physics. A man who has studied forestry until he 
knows all the trees and all about trees and writes fluently on 
their nature and quality doesn’t amount to much in the 
practical world. The mineralogist who knows the weights 
and names and kinds of ores and writes fluently upon that 
subject may have his place in the world. But the man who 
sees an ax handle in a tree and an ax in an ore bank, and has 
the genius to put the two together and thus furnish an im¬ 
plement that every farmer needs, he it is the world applauds. 
So in the world the man who gathers the nuggets of thought 
here and yonder and puts them together until he has an idea 
that moves consciences, builds character, and fixes destiny; 
he it is in the mental world that is doing good, and not the 
mental glutton who feeds and fills his mind, simply to vomit 
it back because he has not the power of assimilation. The 
mental training that harnesses every faculty of the mind, 
perception, conception, memory, judgment, reason, and 
imagination, and drives them like so many horses in a team, 
tapping the one that drags back, is the kind we need. I 
would no more carry a manuscript in the pulpit to help my 
memory than I would carry a bundle of fodder to urge along 
a lazy horse in my team. Treat the faculties of the mind as 
the teamster does a lazy horse; lambast them, and if memory 
or perception or imagination does not come to time, pound 
the life out of them and make them come to time. 


Southern Methodism s Greatest Evangelist 127 

He was absolutely sincere and honest. He said 
to me one morning: “ I had a queer dream last night. 
I dreamed that a five-thousand-dollar note was 
presented to me on which I was security. I saw at a 
glance that the principal was insolvent, but observed 
that the note was out of date. It was barred by the 
statute of limitations and was noncollectible. I 
said to him, * This note is as good as if it were written 
yesterday, and I will pay it.’ I then awoke”—and 
with a quizzical smile he continued, “I am glad I 
didn’t act a rascal in my sleep.” Whether awake or 
asleep he had a Christian integrity in which all who 
knew him believed, and this was an element of his 
unusual power in his own home town where for years 
he conducted an annual tabernacle meeting and was 
himself the most attractive speaker to his own people, 
though he brought to the tabernacle the most dis¬ 
tinguished men he could find in the country. 

From the time he took the platform as an evangel¬ 
ist until his death his life was spotless, his character 
was granite without a flaw or fissure. Theologians 
berated him, scholars ridiculed him, newspapers 
abused him, wicked men maligned him, but there 
was never a scintilla of evidence against the honesty 
of his purpose or the purity of his life. 

In the school of a devout and consistent Christian 
home, whence most preachers come, he was led into a 
simple and unwavering faith in the Bible and all the 
Christian fundamentals. In his day and community 
the Bible was taught in the home, the Sabbath 
school, and the secular school. Its heroes were the 
models, its stories the entertainment, and its pre¬ 
cepts the infallible and unquestionable rules of life. 



128 Methodist Evangelism 

) 

The Bible was read at length at the morning and 
evening prayers in the home and opening exercises 
of the school and constituted the textbook of the 
Sabbath school and the Sunday afternoon storybook. 
He was taught that the Bible is the infallible word of 
God. He believed it. From this guileless trust he 
never budged. He took every statement in the 
Bible at its face value without a question. He ex¬ 
pressed his unsophisticated trust in the Bible in 
these words: “I believe the book from lid to lid. I 
believe the whale swallowed Jonah; and if the Bible 
had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would 
believe that.” This was the palladium of his power. 
When one begins to discover mistakes in the Bible, 
the next discovery will be the “wist not” of Samson. 

Sam Jones approached God with the simplicity of 
a child coming to mother and accepted all of God’s 
promises with a childlike trust and thereby secured 
their rich fulfillment. He harbored no doubts con¬ 
cerning his salvation. He believed in his second 
birth just as implicitly as in his first birth and for the 
same reason—personal consciousness of life. He be¬ 
lieved in Pentecost and sought and realized the 
power that came on Peter. Prayer was not simply a 
devout act of worship and a peradventure. With 
God’s promises before him, he sent forth his petitions 
with the same faith with which he wrote a check with 
his balance sheet before him, and he enjoyed the 
fruition of the Master’s “As your faith, so be it unto 
you.” The absolute surrender of all known sins and 
the sacrifice of self to the will of God brought him 
into the condition in which his faith made God’s 
promise available. Thus he became not only a 



Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist 129 

partaker of the divine nature, but also the divine 
power. The power of Sam Jones was the power of 
God. 

He had little faith in mere emotional demonstra¬ 
tions in the act of repentence. He standardized the 
expression, “Quit your meanness,” which became 
the title of one of his books of sermons. This ex¬ 
pression has caused many of his critics to conclude 
that he accepted external reformation for internal 
regeneration. In this he was greatly misunder¬ 
stood. He urged a sorrow as deep as the roots of sin 
and as heroic as the process of pulling them up by 
the roots and casting them away forever. This he 
embraced in the exhortation, “Quit your meanness,” 
“Quit sin,” “Quit the world,” “Quit the devil”— 
“Quit.” The short, unecclesiastical word is signifi¬ 
cant.' He held that no repentance, however emotion¬ 
al, could go deeper than an absolute and uncondition¬ 
al turning away from all sin, and no word in our 
language, however long and technical, was more 
significant to him than “quit.” As a corollary, he 
held that a surrender of all sin and a turning away 
from all sin did not take place without an emotion as 
deep as the root of sin, in whatsoever way that 
emotion may be expressed. The fact is the same in 
every truly penitent heart. The outward expression 
is as varied as human nature. He held that the fact 
of evangelical repentance is caused by the smiting of 
the Holy Spirit; the culmination is the surrender. 
The outward sign may be tears, sobs, or unexpressed. 
The outward sign may even be a smile, bespeaking an 
inward purpose as strong as that upon the face of a 
brave hero in battle as he meets his foe with a smile 
9 




130 


Methodist Evangelism 


and plunges his well-aimed dagger to the vital spot. 
He regarded not what was visible on the outside, but 
relied wholly on what was occurring on the inside. 
His long experience and knowledge of human nature 
taught him that outward signs are fickle. No one is 
truly penitent until he is willing to quit sin, and no 
one is willing to quit ail sin until he is truly penitent. 

His method of bringing men to a decision for Christ 
and the Church was often criticized. It is natural for 
one to favor the' method by which he found the 
Saviour and to standardize the emotions and expe¬ 
riences which accompanied his own repentance. If 
one fell suddenly under some powerful influence 
which threw him into an agony of conviction, and if 
under this great condemnation he surrendered his 
sins and by an immediate exercise of faith leaped into 
the light amid the exultant singing of enthusiastic 
friends with a joy that he expressed in a shout of 
triumph, he will have little faith in the genuine con¬ 
version of a man who deliberately walks down the 

aisle of the church and without external emotion or 

- * - « * 

demonstration gives his hand to the preacher,’ say¬ 
ing: “I surrender my life to Christ and to the 
Church.” Yet this simple act changed Sam Jones 
the reckless, drinking drayman into Sam Jones the 
devout Christian, devoted preacher, and ’ pbwerful 
evangelist. This simple act, however, was preceded 
by weeks of silent struggling under the smiting of 
the Holy Spirit through the words of a dying father 
and the silent lips of a dead babe; by a conscience on 
fire and an internal and silent battle as indescribable 
as it was invisible. Sam Jones preferred the method 
by which he came to Christ, yet he used all methods, 


Southern Methodism's Greatest Evangelist 131 

inquiry room, anxious seat,” and immediate com¬ 
mitment by public confession and giving the right 
hand as the external act. All who follow sincerely 
any of the methods may be saved if intelligent and 
prayerful conviction and a saving faith are exercised. 
Under his proposition many came forward and shook 
hands with him, who were not sincere and did not 
therefore meet the conditions of salvation. There 
were hundreds and thousands who were sincere and 
were converted. These varying results are the same 
under all methods used in the evangelistic work. He 
felt that if men truly repent of sin and accept God, 
they are saved regardless of external demonstrations. 

He was not avaricious. He had no “cut and dried” 
method for securing money for his services; had no 
envelopes or cards or other devices printed or circu¬ 
lated for offerings. When a letter of inquiry came 
from any town or city calling for the conditions under 
which he would agree to hold a meeting, his answer 
was brief and characteristic and about as follows: 
“I have but one condition, and that is that a tent, 
tabernacle, or some kind of auditorium be provided 
and made comfortable for the seating of not less than 
5,000 people. (The basket collections usually pro¬ 
vide for such an expense. The other finances depend 
on the success of the meeting.) ” He gave absolutely 
no attention to organization and machinery. What¬ 
ever machinery there was in any of his meetings was 
initiated and organized in the community outside of 
his suggestion or manipulation. He would walk into 
a great auditorium packed with people at the opening 
service, step to the front of the platform, and ask 
some of the brethren to volunteer to pass their hats 




132 


Methodist Evangelism 


for an offering to pay for the tabernacle, and alN 
other movements of the meeting proceeded in a 
similar manner without organization unless initiated 
by a local committee. At the close of a meeting a 
voluntary offering was taken and he received it,^ 
much or little, without comment. Instead of an 
organized force to bring folks into the tabernacle, he 
requested a few policemen to stand at the door to 
prevent a jam and a crush, and their services were 
generally necessary. 

All of his printed sermons and sayings were taken 
from his lips stenographically. All of his articles for 
the press were dictated. He was not the compiler or 
direct author of any of his books for profit. They 
were compiled, edited, and published by others. He 
never purposely laid up money. The property that 
fell into his hands came largely in an effort to help 
others. He expressed his unselfish life in this sen¬ 
tence: '‘Brother, I’m for the bottom dog. If you 
want to find Sam Jones, just scratch under the 
bottom dog. If I’m not there, I’ve just gone to 
dinner.” He lived for others. His last act on the 
train on which he died was to furnish a berth for a 
sick man whom he found in the day coach. His 
body lay in state in the Capitol at Atlanta, and no 
other citizen, official or private, in the State of Georgia 
ever had as many loving friends from all conditions of 
life tearfully visit his casket. His body reposes in Car- 
tersville, Ga., beneath a splendid monument which 
bears this inscription: “ They that turn many to right¬ 
eousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever.” 

F His spirit is with God, and the results of his mar- 

I velous ministry are in the keeping of the years. 

gC-12 






























































































A .<y V- 


A a^v * 

<=$ ♦ 


-A A . 


>% a v*a 

'*>*%■■ 



\ 


>\ v^W -v ,<r v <*■ *^>\ 4 a 

y*! ^ 4 A > * . * f*’ O o « » ■ 

V *•* *v ....^A ' A * .^-. A A . 

', ° 0 a -AAA A c° .wa£\ ° A -• 


^ a V* • 

V *° V. * 

• 0 

0 0 


<*■ ’7, . 

: A o* 

; 

A * ’ ‘ -V* -1 ' A * * • * ° 


. *°^ •: 



<■-■•'■* <* 4 ^*«' A-i 

/ . AT^ A o° J 
•a . r* « ;] 



. »’ j0 . 

-. ,0’ A 

«► *£. A "r> ► „ „ „ 

:M4« 


* '^Ov — S C\ C \ 

v S .A:-. <* 


% 

A ° 

^ o 
Ky- 

O " ® • » * 

- **V, . V o 0 “ 0 4 "<*A 

* ,A • _r*f^v «- -f* 

A « 

a v* : 

A ,0° a ^A-‘ ^ 

<V 1 * ©„ *"A \/ 4 * * A + C\ <0 * 

A .v^a.% ^ ,* .vGfi&*'. A„ * 

; „A'A -. 



»>: ,o 



A *• 

„ .,—..\/ A **W A 

/• 0 t -r AJ) 

vj + &(fir/ytz-, * v< «. 

4 K Sy^llzA^r^ '>Av vA 



^ *- # <* ♦ f 

" s 'a 

Treatment Date. May 2006 


•.\” ',/.‘X*'S ’ PreservationTechnologies 

^ ^ A W °RLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

-^*0 111 Thomson Park Drive 

Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



vo » 





^ ’ 




ms** 


o 

3 V * 

*' • * * A 'O’ 4 

0^ t • L ' 0 -* ^o <V’ o 0 " 0 * O 

c ^ ,<T % vSSW. 


* 0v v 


C y 0 


4 0 a 

>. -CL’ “> 

y. ~ 'z>vv/iAsj' * k * _ * 

v • ■ - • , «r °4. * 

> v N >> •;', '-\ 

• ■*■. .« .VS&V. *«■, 




* 

\ > y 
*>*- o 

o V 


++0* 


\° *° -V 

0 . V •* > V . LVL'. 

” ’•«-■»-% •*. A .* 

: W 4 ™Ji 

/ /O °$WS <?% 




<. -'7-..' -O’ '»•■• A <* * 

, <tp c 0* °o ,-J^ ^ 

l - O rtf «*» 

/■N ^ *^COv‘* f %* A N O 

° 0 ; O O^* O, 


P* V 

■** o 


o 


<*> 


» • o 


<4* •*<. 


*<r"^ 


O • » 


•^O 4 




■ °o > 

-o /' ;. 

»• i,°Xt- a 

. o O 4,r c 

.o* .*•«- *> v- .LVi’» 

i> & ,^, 


‘'.C 4- %. '••'.• 

0^ v - 1 '-** "*o 
0 * v 


/ 


L v 


° ■/ 
“bi- 4 : 



,^'V .y 

A? o>. o 1 

DOBBS BROS. a ^ 

LIBRARY BIM0IN0 

■ SEP 81* .••£••, % . 


0^ 

* V > 


ST. AUGUSTINE 
FLA. 



° • » ’ »^V 4 0 • * * t 0 

., ^ <*cr * 



^ A" 4, <?r, •>Va’". 








